General News
Buhari Hunts for Stolen Billions @ NNPC after Futile Attempt as Military Ruler
As oil minister during military rule in the 1970s, Muhammadu Buhari oversaw the birth of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Bloomberg reported that, now, as democratically elected president, he intends to break up the opaque bureaucracy, which manages the oil assets of Africa’s biggest crude producer, to ensure taxpayers get their fair share. History isn’t on his side.
“No Nigerian leader, including Buhari himself from the 1980s, has managed to sanitize the oil sector,” said Philippe de Pontet, head of the Africa practice at the Eurasia Group in New York.
“Buhari’s challenge is not only to depoliticize NNPC but to disentangle its vested interests and its rogue commercial operations, which won’t be easy.”
According to Bloomberg, Buhari made cleaning up the 24,000-employee colossus — the largest government-owned company — a key plank in the election campaign that toppled President Goodluck Jonathan in March.
He plans to split the NNPC in two, creating a regulator and a vehicle for investments, according to Femi Adesina, a presidential spokesman.
So far the president has fired the board and management of the company and replaced its Jonathan-appointed chief with Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, who was executive vice-chariman of Exxon Mobil Africa.
He has also ordered a review of oil-swap contracts and barred 113 vessels from loading oil and gas — about 250,000 barrels of Nigerian crude, about 10 percent of the country’s daily output, are stolen daily, Buhari has said.
‘Mind-Boggling’
“A lot of damage has been done to the integrity of Nigeria with individuals and institutions already compromised,” Buhari told an audience in Washington last month. “The amount involved is mind-boggling.”
Nigeria’s transparency watchdog says the NNPC has diverted more than $30 billion in oil revenue from the state since 2009. That exceeds the annual economic output of more than half the nations in Africa and roughly equals the federal budget.
The situation is increasingly desperate because, with a halving in Brent crude prices in the past year, government coffers are “virually empty,” Buhari said after less than a month in office; about two-thirds of the country’s almost 180 million people live on less than a dollar a day.
Set up to defend Nigeria’s interests with foreign majors, the company controls an aggregate 55 percent share in joint ventures with the likes of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. Crude exports account for about two-thirds of government revenue.
Four Towers
Bloomberg said that NNPC’s four-tower headquarters building in the capital dominates Abuja’s skyline. It’s the landlord to the petroleum ministry, whose minister chairs the organization. Group managing director Kachikwu is its sixth head in five years.
For all its importance to Nigeria, the NNPC is largely inscrutable. It had the worst disclosure record of 44 energy companies analyzed in a 2011 report by anti-corruption nonprofit organizations Transparency International and the Revenue Watch Institute.
Ohi Alegbe, a spokesman for the NNPC, declined to comment, citing the pending reorganization, when contacted by phone Thursday. The NNPC consistently denies any wrongdoing.
Allegations of missing funds go back as far as when Buhari was oil minister. The Lagos-based Punch newspaper reported in 1978, a year after the NNPC took its current name, that the company failed to remit the equivalent of about $3.5 billion it owed the Treasury.
Military Investigations
In the 1990s, a military-sanctioned investigation found $12 billion in oil revenue was unaccounted for under the government of army ruler Ibrahim Babangida.
After the return to democratic rule in 1999, Nigeria signed up in 2005 to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a global effort in which governments committed to disclosing all extractive industry payments. Since then, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, or NEITI, has said at least $23.2 billion due wasn’t deposited into the national accounts from 2009 to 2011.
More recently, then-central bank Governor Lamido Sanusi alleged in a memo to Jonathan that the corporation retained as much as $50 billion in oil revenue that was due the government.
Sanusi’s claims led Jonathan to commission a PricewaterhouseCooper LLP audit for the period from January 2012 to July 2013. PwC found the NNPC had a “blank check” to spend without control and had accounting and monitoring systems filled with “significant” discrepancies.
The NNPC should refund as much as $4.29 billion to the government, the report said. Then-Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke said on April 22 that the company had started to refund the minimum $1.48 billion the audit recommended.
Opaque Debts
Then, there’s the money it owes commercial partners.
The NNPC’s debts to its eight joint ventures have “ballooned over the years,” according to a ruling All Progressives Congress policy report submitted to Buhari after the election and obtained by Bloomberg.
In 2012, the state company paid $6.9 billion of the $10.4 billion it owed. The difference was covered by loans from international oil companies including Shell, Exxon Mobil and Total. The companies declined to comment.
Critics say any shakeup would have to resolve NNPC’s dual role as regulator and oil company.
Corruption would vanish if Buhari refocused the NNPC as just a regulator “so people like us can get on with the job,” said Kola Karim, head of a Nigerian oil explorer.
Producing about 60,000 barrels a day, Karim’s Shoreline Group, founded in 1997, could be pumping more than double that amount if the NNPC wasn’t a partner in his business and with civil servants slowing investment decisions, he said.
Senior officials in Buhari’s party are calling for even more drastic measures.
“We should replace the NNPC,” Nasir el-Rufai, the governor of northern Kaduna state, said in Abuja this month. Nigeria needs to “tackle the monster that the NNPC has become.”
Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) indicted the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and other ministries over administrative lapses that allowed the fictitious Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) to operate.
Musa Aliyu, chairman, ICPC, stated that NITDA, alongside the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), the Budget Office, and other bodies, failed to carry out adequate due diligence and standard operating procedures.
ICPC said however, clarified that the findings pointed to severe internal control weaknesses and administrative negligence rather than active official complicity by NITDA and the other affected agencies.
The briefing followed a 30-day investigation ordered by the president on July 7 into allegations surrounding the purported presidential council.
The commission also cleared the presidency and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of any wrongdoing but blamed institutional lapses in several ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
Aliyu said investigators established that Adeniyi Adeyemi, the director-general, was never appointed by the federal government and that the PFIPC had no legal existence.
“As you may recall, on the 7th of July, Mr. President directed the ICPC to conduct an investigation into the fake Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council and submit a report within 30 days,” he said.
“Today, exactly within the stipulated period, we have submitted an interim report based on our interactions with all stakeholders involved.”
According to Aliyu, Tinubu directed the commission to make its findings public in the interest of transparency and accountability.
He said the investigation found that Adeyemi’s purported appointment letter was forged.
“It has been established that Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew was never appointed by the Federal Government or any authority whatsoever,” he said.
“The Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, which sometimes they called the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, was never established by any law, executive order or any valid instrument of government.
“The appointment letter presented by Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew was completely forged alongside similar documents used to perpetuate the illegal activities of the fake agency.”
Aliyu stated that a purported government gazette used to legitimise the organisation was also fabricated.
“If you recall, there was a gazette which he used to support the fake agency. That gazette is an illegal document that never passed through the processes prescribed by law,” he stated.
“Our investigation found that the office used by the fake agency was the office of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council. The office was broken into and access was gained illegally. That was how he was able to operate from there.”
Aliyu also revealed that investigators uncovered two additional fictitious government agencies allegedly created by the suspect — the FCT Investment Promotion Agency (FIPA) and the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency/Public-Private Partnership (FIPA-PPP).
According to him, fake legislative instruments were used to create the agencies and open bank accounts.
Despite the elaborate scheme, the ICPC chairman said the investigation found no evidence that federal government funds were disbursed to the fake council.
“Our investigation found that no funds of the federal government were approved or disbursed to the fake PFIPC,” he said.
“We also discovered no weaknesses in the systems of the State House or the Central Bank of Nigeria during our investigation. The fake appointment letter did not originate from the presidency.
“Our investigation found that some public officers failed to carry out due diligence and failed to comply with standard operating procedures in their ministries and departments. That gave him the opportunity to carry out these illegal acts.”
Nigeria tax system is build on taxing prosperity not poverty, according to Dr. Zacch Adedeji, executive chairman, Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS).
Dr. Zacch Adedeji, executive chairman, Nigeria Revenue Service
Adedeji, also dismissed the insinuation that the government’s tax reform is aimed at extracting money from Nigerians .
He said the essence of reform is creating an economic environment where individuals and businesses can prosper.
Dr. Adedeji made the clarifications on Sunday night while appearing on Channels Television’s Politics Today, where he defended the administration’s tax reforms and addressed concerns over rising government revenue amid the economic hardship facing Nigerians.
According to him, the government’s objective is to tax the fruits of investment rather than the investment itself.
“For us at Nigeria Tax, we are not there to extract. Our focus is not revenue. I don’t want to tax poverty. I’m to tax the fruit, not the seed, and I’m to tax the return, not investment.”
Adedeji explained that the government would generate more revenue as businesses became more profitable, without necessarily increasing the tax burden on individuals and companies.
He said a company that made N100 in profit could generate N30 in tax revenue for the government, but if its profit increased to N200 or N300, government revenue would rise accordingly.
“So, if I want to make more, I must work for you to make more. And that is why it is in the best interest of us in Nigeria Revenue Service that businesses are doing well, individuals are doing well,” he said.
He said the approach was consistent with President Bola Tinubu’s economic agenda, which seeks to remove barriers to investment and create a more conducive environment for businesses to operate and expand.
Adedeji cited reforms in the electricity sector as part of the government’s efforts to stimulate economic activity.
He noted that the Electricity Act had devolved powers to state governments to generate, transmit and distribute electricity, arguing that improved power supply would boost production and productivity across the economy.
Prof Chidi Oguamanam, Nigerian scholar, has been invited to serve as a member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO’s) World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology.
Prof Chidi Oguamanam,
The appointment, which covers four years from 2026 to 2029, recognises Oguamanam’s contributions to the ethics of science and technology and related disciplines.
The invitation was conveyed in a letter from UNESCO on Saturday, which described the commission as an independent advisory body and forum for reflection on major ethical challenges arising from advances in science and technology.
The letter stated, “Recognising your significant contributions to the ethics of science and technology and related disciplines, it is my honour to invite you to become a member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology for a period of four years, from 2026 to 2029.”
Established in 1998, the commission brings together experts from different regions and disciplines to examine ethical issues associated with scientific and technological developments, climate change and the environment.
UNESCO said regional balance was important to the commission’s membership to promote multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary debate on emerging ethical challenges.
According to the organisation, the commission provides guidance and recommendations through its reports to UNESCO, its member states, the scientific community, policymakers, civil society and other stakeholders.
Its previous work has contributed to global normative instruments, including the Declaration of Ethical Principles in Relation to Climate Change adopted in 2017 and the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence adopted in 2021.
UNESCO noted that the commission had recently published reports examining the ethics of quantum computing and space exploration and utilisation.
The organisation said the commission would now focus on new areas identified for its future work programme, including emerging ethical challenges arising from scientific and technological developments.
In inviting Oguamanam to join the commission, UNESCO expressed confidence in his expertise and active contribution to the development of its forthcoming reports.
The organisation also said it expected members to contribute to “horizon scanning” of emerging ethical challenges and help identify issues that should be addressed in the commission’s next cycle.
Oguamanam’s appointment adds to Nigeria’s representation in international discussions on the ethical implications of science, technology and innovation.
He is expected to serve on the commission alongside experts from different regions and academic disciplines during the 2026–2029 term.
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