Chairman of the Nigerian Oil Professionals Vanguard Group, Bassey Chinedu, has faulted claims by Senator Ahmed Aliyu Wadada over an alleged ₦210 trillion discrepancy in the financial records of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), urging lawmakers to seek expert clarification before drawing conclusions.
Reacting to the controversy sparked by the senator’s remarks on Channels Television, Chinedu said figures appearing in oil and gas financial statements are often complex accounting entries and should not automatically be interpreted as missing funds.
“Those who understand oil and gas accounting know that large figures such as joint venture obligations, receivables and cost recoveries can appear enormous in consolidated financial statements. It does not automatically translate to missing money,” Chinedu said.
The reaction follows comments by Wadada, who chairs the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, during an appearance on Politics Today anchored by Seun Okinbaloye. During the interview, the senator raised concerns about what he described as discrepancies in NNPC’s financial records totaling about ₦210 trillion.
However, Wadada later clarified that the committee was not accusing the national oil company of theft but was instead seeking explanations for entries contained in the Auditor-General’s report and the company’s audited financial statements.
According to him, the committee expects NNPC to provide a reconciled response addressing issues such as legal fees, rebranding costs and other financial entries reflected in its accounts.
Despite the clarification, analysts and observers have questioned the interpretation of the figures, noting that Nigeria’s federal budgets between 2018 and 2020 totalled roughly ₦28.5 trillion, making the alleged ₦210 trillion discrepancy appear significantly larger than several years of national budgets combined.
During the television exchange, the presenter also raised the possibility that the figures cited by the committee could represent standard accounting classifications such as receivables, liabilities or multi-year financial obligations rather than missing funds.
Another point of contention involved the committee’s interpretation of NNPC’s reported ₦103 trillion in accrued expenses for 2023. Wadada questioned how such a figure could be recorded when the company’s total reported revenue over the previous five years was about ₦24 trillion.
Chinedu, however, cautioned that such figures could reflect complex operational structures within the oil and gas sector.
“Large-scale oil and gas operations involve multi-year obligations, cost recovery mechanisms and joint venture accounting. Without a proper technical review, these figures can easily be misunderstood,” he explained.
He also defended transparency reforms introduced under former NNPC Group Chief Executive Officer Mele Kyari, noting that the company began consistently publishing audited financial statements during his tenure.
“Under Mele Kyari, NNPC published audited financial statements consistently for the first time in decades. That alone shows a commitment to transparency. It would be unfair to suggest wrongdoing without a proper technical review,” he added.
Chinedu therefore urged the Senate Committee on Public Accounts to engage independent financial and petroleum accounting experts to properly analyse the figures before arriving at any conclusions.
