The Transparency Network and Public Interest Initiative has faulted former Vice President Atiku Abubakar over his claim linking the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s ₦11.2 trillion Federation receivables to the financing of President Bola Tinubu’s re-election campaign, describing the allegation as a desperate reach by a man still driven by a perennial ambition to occupy the presidency.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Monday, the group’s spokesperson, Dr Ehizojie Emmanuel Anderson, said Mr Abubakar would have spared himself public embarrassment if he had examined the company’s own disclosures before attempting to rubbish reforms under the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr Bayo Ojulari.
Dr Anderson said the ₦11.2 trillion recorded as owed to NNPCL by the Federation covers advances and costs incurred on the Federation’s behalf, including the protection of Nigeria’s oil and gas assets, and was built up over successive years rather than spent in a single opaque transaction.
According to the group, the company’s disclosures show the following outlays on behalf of the Federation:
- In 2022, NNPCL disclosed spending ₦126 billion on behalf of the Federation.
- In 2023, it disclosed spending ₦3 trillion on behalf of the Federation.
- In 2024, it disclosed spending ₦5.7 trillion on behalf of the Federation. The company stated that the payment related to advance payments to the Federation and security costs incurred in protecting oil and gas assets.
- In 2025, it disclosed spending ₦2.3 trillion on behalf of the Federation. The disclosure again identified the payment as an advance to the Federation and security costs incurred in protecting oil and gas assets, and stated that the charge was made under an approved framework between the NNPC Group and the Government.
Taken together, the group said, security costs and advance payments to the Federation stand at ₦126 billion in 2022, ₦3 trillion in 2023, ₦5.7 trillion in 2024 and ₦2.3 trillion in 2025, amounting to ₦11.2 trillion.
“These are not hidden campaign funds. They are recorded Federation obligations, disclosed by the company itself, accumulated over time, and tied to advances and the cost of protecting national oil and gas assets under an approved framework,” Dr Anderson said.
“A man who has read the report would not be asking Nigerians to treat a multi-year receivable as proof that NNPCL is bankrolling a political campaign.”
The group commended NNPCL under Mr Ojulari for publishing the figures and for the transparency with which it has reported its operations, and said the reforms at the company should be scrutinised on the evidence, not dragged into an election narrative.
Dr Anderson warned Mr Abubakar to leave NNPCL alone and stop politicising its operations. He contrasted what he described as Mr Abubakar’s past inclination to sell the national oil company to cronies with the record of the company under the present GCEO, which he said has been profitable and open with its accounts, and must be allowed to continue on that path.
“The attack on the oil giant is unnecessary and unwarranted,” he said. “Nigerians are better served by a national oil company that publishes what it spends on behalf of the Federation than by a serial aspirant grasping at straws to keep a fading presidential ambition alive.”