NNPC Responds to Oshiomole, Clarifies It Is Not a Theft Allegation

Former Chief Financial Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Umar Ajiya, stated that the company and its employees are not thieves.

Ajiya made the comment during a Senate Public Accounts Committee session that is examining alleged misappropriation of funds.

His remarks came after a lawmaker from the Edo North Senatorial District, Adams Oshiomhole, accused the NNPCL of being a “house of thieves.”

Oshiomhole claimed that N2.9 billion was spent on the incorporation and rebranding of the company, while denying that N5.8 billion was used for the registration process itself.

“We are not thieves. N2.9 billion was used to register NNPC, not N5.8 billion. I have been presenting and defending the company’s reports to this committee over the last five or six years,” Ajiya said.

He added, “I need to give assurance to Mr Chairman and distinguished Senators present here today, and in fact all Nigerians, that there is no money missing. Let me make it very clear that if money was actually missing in NNPC during our period, we would not have had the courage to publish the audited accounts in the past 44 years.”

“The accounts were prepared and never kept hidden from the public, and even sometimes with the Auditor-General of the Federation. So we made it a duty upon us not only to give to the Auditor-General, but also to put it on our website, let Nigerians criticise and scrutinise to get out of the opaqueness and that lack of trust that the public had on NNPC,” he added.