The Senate Committee on Public Accounts has opened a formal inquiry into the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, citing inconsistencies totaling N210 trillion in its publicly available audited financial reports.
At the committee session held on the 18th of June, 2025, the chairman, Senator Aliyu Wadada, confirmed that external auditors had been brought in to aid the process.
“We and NNPC and external auditors are here because of discrepancies that we have discovered from their audited financial statements, which is in the public domain already,” Wadada stated.
He emphasized that the committee would not accept any document contradicting what is already published in the audited reports.
“So any document that contradicts what is contained in their audited financial statement is in abhorrence here. We have no question.
“I mean, as far as we are concerned, it’s just a paper. We are not even looking at that. Because the issues are all on, about, and around their audited financial statement.”
Wadada said the presence of external auditors underscored the seriousness of the matter.
According to him, “The figure of the accrued expenses is N103 trillion, while the figure of the receivables is N107 trillion,” adding, “So in total, figure-wise, you are talking N210 trillion.”
He also raised concerns about the validity of the reports if reconciliation had not been carried out.
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“They said reconciliation had not been done. So if reconciliation was not done, why did they sign off to the audited financial statement?” Wadada asked.
“And this audited financial statement is already in the public domain. And NNPC is planning to go to the market for initial public offer (IPO). But it is not for us to go into conclusions now.”
In his response, Adedapo Segun, the Chief Financial Officer of NNPC, clarified that the N107 trillion cited in the receivables stemmed from joint venture financial operations.
“The N107 trillion, essentially, are made up of JV cash calls that have been requested by the JV operators and JV cash call payments that have been made by NNPC, which were yet to be reconciled because the governance procedure was not done at the time,” Segun explained.
He added, “And that is why we see the description reflecting the fact that those two items would wash out because they are basically two sides of the same transaction, which is the cash calls from the JV partners and the settlements by NNPC.”
Following his remarks, Senator Wadada issued a set of detailed questions for NNPC to address and gave the company a one-week deadline to submit its responses.