Senator Aliyu Wadada, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, has raised concerns over discrepancies in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) financial records, stating that figures from 2017 to 2023 did not pass through the profit and loss account as required under standard accounting principles.
The remarks were made during an interview on Channels Television on Sunday, March 8, 2026, where Wadada discussed the committee’s findings from its ongoing audit of NNPCL’s finances.
During the interview, the host asked for clarification regarding the nature of the discrepancies. “This money that you are talking about, is it stolen? Is it missing? Is it unaccounted for in the sense that the figures were not right? Or what do you suspect in your auditing of the NNPCL?” the interviewer asked.
Wadada explained the accounting irregularities observed in the company’s statements. “Thank you very much. First and foremost, I will start by reminding us that in accounting principle, for any figure to be accepted as liability figure or asset figure or both, it must pass through P&L, profit and loss account. The figures we are talking about, as far as the audited financial statement of NNPC from 2017 to 2023, did not pass through the P&L. That’s one,” he said.
The interviewer then asked whether this occurred before the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and whether there was a formal process for accounting these funds, noting the involvement of top officials, including the minister of petroleum.
“That is a big failure. Was this before PIA was passed? So there is a protocol on how these monies are going to be accounted for? Yes, through the bureaucracy. And it gets the sign of the headship of the NNPC and maybe the Minister of Petroleum Resources, which at the time, mostly when we’re talking about is President Mohammad Buhari, because he was acting as the Minister of Petroleum,” the interviewer said.
Wadada further addressed the scale of the financial inconsistencies.
He said, “Now, the mind-boggling figures, 210 trillion, to every normal mind, it cannot be comprehended when you say 210 trillion is missing. This is why we are saying 210 trillion. And I break it down. According to none of the issues raised by this committee was fabricated or gotten from anywhere other than from the audited financial statement of NNPC 2017 to 2022.”
He added, “And according to the literature contained in the audited financial statement of NNPC 2017 to 2023, it said that the accrued expenses of NNPC within the period under review was 103 trillion. Accrued expenses stand for the liabilities, 103 trillion. And this 103 trillion was captured under three items. One, retention fee. Two, legal fee. Three, audit fee. It is bad enough and inductive enough on the side of NNPC to mention these three items without any figure linked to any of the items,” he said.