…Given three weeks to address the issues
The Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd), Mr. Bayo Ojulari on Tuesday, July 29, 2025 tendered an unreserved apology to the Senate through its Committee on Public Account for his initial failure to honour previous invitations extended to him to appear before it.
This was as the Senate directed Ojulari to respond to the audit queries relating to an unaccounted N210 trillion, as contained in the financial reports covering 2017 to 2023 within three weeks.
Ojulari, who recently marked 100 days in office as the GCEO of the NNPC Ltd, pleaded with the Senate for additional time to fully review the technical and contextual details of the 19 audit queries raised by the Upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly.
Ojulari explained that a thorough response would require collaboration with external auditors and internal teams to ensure the issues are appropriately addressed.
He said; “I need to understand the details myself so I can respond appropriately. Now that I have heard your perspective, it is clear I must dig deeper. I will set up a team, engage external auditors, and reconcile the details properly before we submit our responses”.
Although Ojulari had initially requested four weeks from the Senator Aliyu Wadada-led Committee, but the committee granted him three weeks, which he later agreed would be sufficient for the NNPC Ltd to compile all the necessary explanations.
While explaining the components of the audit queries, Senator Wadada said that the N210 trillion was split into N103 trillion in liabilities and N107 trillion in assets, stressing that the figures must be fully reconciled and accounted for by the Nation’s Oil company.
Wadada said that the queries were not allegations made by the Senate, but extracted from the audited financial statements submitted by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.
In the words of Wadada; “These are not arbitrary questions. They are based on official audit reports covering the years 2017 to 2023. This committee has not, at any point, claimed that the N210 trillion is missing. What we are doing is in line with our constitutional duty to scrutinize public accounts”.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Account said that the NNPCL is expected to submit written responses to all 19 queries within three weeks, after which the GCEO and relevant members of his management would be given the opportunity to defend certain aspects of the queries.
While accepting the apology by the NNPC GCEO, Senator Wadada said the amount in question was neither missing nor stolen, but lacked proper documentation and explanation.
