Clean up NNPC By Punch Editorial Board on January 12, 2026: Recommended Nigerian Newspaper Report 12
NIGERIA’S oil sector, which supplies over 70 per cent of the government’s revenue, confronts a deepening crisis rooted in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s internal dysfunctions.
Envisioned by the 2021 Petroleum Industry Act as a lean commercial powerhouse, NNPC Ltd posted impressive 2024 figures, reporting ₦5.4 trillion profit after tax on ₦45.1 trillion revenue, up from ₦3.3 trillion in 2023 and ₦2.54 trillion in 2022, marking the best performance in the company’s history.
Yet these gains mask a troubling reality. Intra-company debts spiked by 70 per cent to ₦30.3 trillion from ₦17.78 trillion the previous year, driven by chronic underperformers among its sprawl of subsidiaries.
Port Harcourt Refinery alone owes ₦4.22 trillion, up from ₦2 trillion; Kaduna Refinery ₦2.39 trillion; Warri ₦2.06 trillion; and trading arm NNPC Trading SA a staggering ₦19.15 trillion, more than double its 2023 level, according to its 2024 audited accounts.
Meanwhile, NNPC’s payables to subsidiaries climbed 45 per cent to ₦20.51 trillion, and external borrowings doubled to ₦122.8 billion.
President Bola Tinubu’s decision to write off $1.42 billion and ₦5.57 trillion in federation debts eases short-term strain but dodges the core problems, including the unresolved $42.37 billion under-remittance dispute from 2011 to 2017.
Such debt forgiveness, totalling nearly ₦8 trillion, risks entrenching fiscal indiscipline rather than curing it.
Critics point out that this sum surpasses Nigeria’s combined 2025 budgets for education, health, and agriculture at ₦7.1 trillion, shifting burdens onto citizens already reeling from subsidy removals and rising taxes.
Petroleum economist Wumi Iledare frames the ₦30.3 trillion figure as a profound “governance test,” not mere insolvency.
With 24 of 32 subsidiaries mired in debt, profitable divisions endlessly prop up the weak, fostering opacity, deepening confusion and eroding accountability.
The World Bank reinforces this critique, pinpointing the NNPC as a primary conduit for revenue leakages. It remitted only 50 per cent of post-subsidy windfalls (₦600 billion out of ₦1.1 trillion in 2024) while clinging to monopolistic control over crude sales, a carryover from pre-PIA days when regulatory and commercial roles overlapped.
These pre-PIA legacies explain much of the mess: overlapping mandates sparked endless disputes, as seen in the ongoing Periscope audit impasse. Today’s pressures compound the issue as the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission’s revenues fell ₦5.65 trillion short by November 2025.
Yet write-offs merely defer reckoning, trapping cash in receivables that could fund the maintenance and expansion. Experts like Jeremiah Olatide label this trajectory as “financial recklessness” and advocate rigorous audits over debt amnesties to fulfil the PIA’s commercial promise.
Well-run national oil companies elsewhere illuminate a viable path. Nigeria LNG Limited stands as a shining example of private sector governance advantages. This joint venture has channelled $44 billion in dividends to the federation over 25 years, from 49 per cent direct shares and $1.2 billion in 2023 taxes.
Stringent governance, minimal bureaucracy, and laser-focused asset management, even amid gas supply hurdles, delivered such gains. The NNPC must adopt its template.
Norway’s Equinor offers a restructuring masterclass, divesting non-core international assets to unlock over $2 billion in value, such as $1.2 billion from Nigeria and Azerbaijan exits in 2024, thereby concentrating on high-yield upstream operations.
Malaysia’s Petronas, rebounding from a 29 per cent profit dip in 2023, merged underperforming units and fortified capital buffers to weather price volatility, paving the way for planned $9.8 billion dividends.
Angola’s Sonangol, preparing for its landmark IPO, slashed departments from 21 to 12 and offloaded marginal holdings, echoing Petrobras’ overhaul for sharper efficiency.
Saudi Aramco’s 2019 IPO debut, raising $29 billion via partial privatisation, propelled it to $88.2 billion net income, demonstrating how market scrutiny drives discipline and capital inflows.
While the NNPC edges toward similar reforms with its “Fit for the Future” strategy, eyeing an IPO under PIA and CAMA guidelines and assets sales, as Group CEO Bayo Ojulari outlined at ADIPEC 2025, true progress demands swift execution.
The NOC must enforce strict intra-group settlement timelines to quarantine legacy debts; improve on transparency and divest or merge zombie refineries and other subsidiaries to free up trillions in trapped capital, as well as vigorously expand operations in gas, pipelines and renewables.
However, these can only be achieved and sustained through a partial privatisation of the NOC, given its long and sordid history of corruption, opacity and undue political influence. The NNPC needs a full and comprehensive cleanup.
Tinubu faces a defining choice to either let debt erasure obscure systemic inefficiencies and revive old pathologies or champion NNPC’s privatisation to foster commercial rigour in its operations.
This is the surefire path to NNPC shedding its liability status, ensuring energy security and making real contributions to national prosperity.
Research Credits
*This compilation series was first researched, written, poster designed and last updated by Toju Micheal Ogbe.
*The report series is open for/to suggestion, donation, sponsorship, collaboration, partnership or advertisement (+2349064503292).
Clean up NNPC By Punch Editorial Board on January 12, 2026 is a report series by PositiveNaija aims to amplify and preserve the truth as done on the editorials of various Nigerian newspapers.
