The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has been given 10 days to explain what happened to an alleged missing N210 trillion discovered by an audit.
On Thursday, the Senate Committee on Public Accounts headed by Mr Aliyu Wadada, expressed frustration over the attitude of the agency to its investigations into the company’s books.
The NNPC was invited to clarify inconsistencies in its audited financial statements from 2017 to 2023, but it asked for two months to provide answers, noting that it could not appear because of a corporate retreat, and that the documents requested by the Senate require more time to compile.
The response of the NNPC infuriated the committee, which threatened to issue an arrest warrant on the chief executive of the national oil firm, Mr Bayo Ojulari, if he fails to appear in less than two weeks, precisely on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
“This committee finds it completely unacceptable that the NNPCL CEO and his team failed to appear before us today to address audit discrepancies amounting to over N210 trillion.
“The excuse that top management is away on a retreat, and that they require two more months to collate documents, is not only insufficient but disrespectful to the Nigerian people.
“These discrepancies are already in the public domain through their audited financial statements. We are not interested in any contradictory submissions.
“The GCEO must appear in person by July 10 or we will invoke the full constitutional powers of the National Assembly, including issuing a warrant of arrest,” Mr Wadada said.
The upper chamber of the parliament is looking into significant discrepancies amounting to N210 trillion in the company’s audited financial reports.
It was discovered that about N103 trillion was listed as accrued expenses, and N107 trillion as receivables, amounting to a total of N210 trillion under scrutiny.
According to the Chief Financial Officer of the NNPC, Mr Adedapo Segun, the N107 trillion was from Joint Venture (JV) cash calls both requests by JV partners and payments by NNPC that hadn’t yet been reconciled due to governance delays.