NNPC Limited is not looking very good right now when it comes to managing the revenues that should ordinarily belong to the Nigerian Federation. The truth is that it has never been exactly the most admired public institution in Nigeria—often seen instead as a byword for inefficiency and corruption. This, we should add, is a historical legacy, not the fault of the current management.
Look at the four refineries, for example. A public commentator recently highlighted the irony of NNPC’s leadership fawning over the Dangote Refinery while their own four refineries remain moribund and money-guzzling. And everywhere you look, there is credible evidence that NNPC has been shortchanging the Nigerian Federation—the actual owner of the oil and gas assets producing the contested revenues.
The numbers are damning. According to Agora Policy, an Abuja-based think tank, “In 2021, before the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), the total value of the Federation’s entitlement from crude oil sales through NNPC was $11.308 billion, or 74.43% of the total sales value of $15.192 billion. In 2023, after the PIA, the total value of the Federation’s entitlement from crude oil sales through NNPCL was $2.328 billion, or 14.14% of the total sales value of $16.467 billion.”
Those are stark numbers, by any measure. NNPC has also not paid any dividends to the Federation Account on the Joint Ventures (JVs) it manages on behalf of the Federation in almost two years; the last reported JV dividend payment was in March 2024. Since then, there has always been one excuse or another.
For the Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs), NNPC has continued to invoke the PIA to retain 60% of the total profit oil and gas that should go to the Federation. It does this despite not contributing any investment or funding to the PSCs—100% of the financing comes from partner oil companies designated as PSC contractors. A classic case of having your cake and eating it too.
Through Executive Order 9, the President has now insisted that this is a gross violation of the Constitution, and it must stop. Section 162(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is unambiguous: all revenues collected by the Government of the Federation shall be paid into the Federation Account. Given the supremacy of the Constitution, anything that violates this provision cannot stand. The clear intention of Executive Order 9 is not presidential overreach but an affirmation of constitutional supremacy.
Now that President Tinubu has invoked constitutionalism, this is not the time for NNPC to wring its hands in despair or fight back—overtly or covertly. This should instead be seen as a turning-point moment: a chance to start afresh and do things the right way. Now is the perfect opportunity for NNPC Limited to end its addiction to expropriating and manipulating Federation revenues and to work harder at making its own legitimate money—like a real oil company.
The days of easy, unaccounted-for money are over. It is time for NNPC Limited to operate like the private players in the industry—the IOCs and independents. There is enormous potential for the company to generate its own legitimate revenue, instead of simply inserting drinking straws into the Federation Account and shortchanging 200 million Nigerians.
NNPC is sitting on immensely valuable assets that can and must be optimised. Just two months ago, the company announced that its exploration and production subsidiary, NNPC E&P, achieved a record peak production of 355,000 barrels per day on 1 December 2025—its highest daily output since 1989—with average daily production of 312,000 barrels per day in 2025, a 52% increase over 2023. That is roughly 20% of Nigeria’s current production and more than double what a successful independent like Seplat produces.
With this kind of potential, NNPC Limited is poised to deliver brilliant—and deserved—returns that could make it the envy of the industry. For too long, Nigerians have talked about NNPC rivalling the Aramcos and Petrobras of this world. Executive Order 9 has created yet another opportunity to make that dream real. We urge NNPC Limited to seize it: cast away the crutches of easy Federation money, double down on productive petroleum business, and grow from being a troublesome local champion into a truly world-class national oil company.
Nigerians will be grateful, and the future NNPC will thank the present one.
