…Demand for his exit after resignation over corruption
A coalition of Niger Delta Youth leaders on Wednesday, August 27, 2025, staged a protest at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Towers in Abuja with a demand for the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nation’s oil company, Mr Bashir Bayo Ojulari to quit over alleged brazen corruption and mismanagement.
The Niger Delta Youth particularly called for the appointment of an indigene of the Niger Delta geopolitical zone as the GCEO of the NNPC Ltd.
The peaceful protesters who arrived the NNPC Ltd Towers in their numbers at about 6:00am successfully blocked the entrance and exit gates of the company carrying banners and placards with different inscriptions.
They also chanted solidarity songs amid music supplied by a local orchestra and modern music blaring from loud speakers that were positioned in an opened truck that was strategically stationed near NNPC Towers.
One of the leaders of the protesters, who addressed the youths, said that the corruption taking place in the NNPC Ltd under Mr Bayo Ojulari if left unchecked would collapse the nation’s economy.
He also said that since Ojulari has reportedly resigned, it was only proper to exit from the NNPC Ltd than to allow him temper with documents that are showing the fraud committed.
The leader of the Niger Delta Youths particularly noted that The NNPC Ltd GCEO, Mr Ojulari has deliberately eliminated core professionals from the Oil producing region that stood to challenge some of the malfeasances taking place in the company.
Expectedly, the protest which took security agencies by surprise, disrupted vehicular traffic on the ever-busy Herbert Macaulay Way in the Central Business District.
However, security agencies that were later deployed to the scene that included men of the Nigeria Police Force waded in by appealing to the Niger Delta Youth to maintain decorum and ensure that the protest was peaceful.
The security operatives also ensured that traffic was diverted to one lane of the dual carriage way leading to the NNPCL towers as workers were forced to park their cars far away from the gates of the Towers as a result of the protest.
The protesters later cleared off the highway and converged at the exit gate of the NNPC Ltd Towers following an appeal by a representative of the Minister of State for Petroleum (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri.
This development led to the opening of the second lane of the dual carriage way to vehicular traffic.
The protest even though disruptive, was however peaceful.
