The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has issued an urgent demand to Senate President Godswill Akpabio, calling on him to direct the Public Accounts Committee to publicly disclose the names of officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited linked to an alleged 210 trillion naira, approximately 150 billion dollars, in unaccounted revenue generated between 2015 and 2022. SERAP has given the Senate a seven-day deadline to comply, warning that it will pursue legal action if the demand is not met.
The demand stems from Senate audit processes that have been ongoing since July 2025, during which significant discrepancies were uncovered in NNPCL’s revenue records over the seven-year period. The audits revealed gaps between what the corporation reportedly earned and what was remitted to the federation account, raising serious questions about where the money went and who was responsible for ensuring it reached the public treasury. NNPCL has disputed characterisations of the discrepancies as theft, insisting instead that the figures require reconciliation and that the gaps are a matter of accounting rather than criminal diversion. Previous ultimatums demanding refunds have gone unresolved, adding to the frustration surrounding the case.
SERAP’s intervention brings renewed pressure to a matter that has lingered without clear accountability. The organisation argued that simply identifying discrepancies is meaningless if the individuals responsible for managing the funds are never named or held to account. By directing its demand at Akpabio personally, SERAP is placing the responsibility squarely on the leadership of the Senate, the institution that initiated the audit but has yet to translate its findings into public disclosure or concrete action.
SERAP framed its demand as a matter of public interest and constitutional obligation, making clear that the seven-day window is not a suggestion.
The organisation threatened to take legal action against the Senate if the names of NNPCL officials connected to the unaccounted funds are not disclosed within seven days, stating that Nigerians have a right to know who is responsible for the missing revenue.
The scale of the alleged discrepancy is staggering. Two hundred and ten trillion naira over seven years represents a sum that dwarfs Nigeria’s entire annual budget multiple times over. To put it in perspective, the 2026 federal budget stands at approximately 47 trillion naira. If even a fraction of the alleged unaccounted funds were recovered and properly deployed, the impact on infrastructure, healthcare, education, and poverty reduction would be transformative. That such a figure can exist in audit reports without a single name being attached to it captures everything that is broken about accountability in Nigeria’s oil sector.
NNPCL has long operated with a level of opacity that has frustrated citizens, lawmakers, and civil society organisations alike. Despite its transformation from a government corporation to a limited liability company, the culture of secrecy around its finances has changed little. The argument that the discrepancies are merely accounting issues requiring reconciliation may have technical merit in some cases, but it does not explain why the reconciliation has taken this long or why the process has produced no visible consequences for anyone involved….See More
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