President Bola Tinubu’s abrupt sacking of the entire Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Board without any public justification, reeks of autocratic impulse, mirrors opacity, disregards democratic accountability, and insults Nigerians who deserve to know why such drastic changes were made in a corporation central to the nation’s lifeblood, at a time Nigeria is hemorrhaging billions to crude oil theft and economic mismanagement. Before jetting off to Paris, France, last Wednesday, for a two-week retreat, Tinubu ignominiously sacked the NNPC board chairman, Chief Pius Akinyelure and the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mallam Mele Kyari. In a statement by Special Adviser to the President (Information & Strategy), Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu also removed all other board members he appointed with Akinyelure and Kyari in November 2023. The new 11-man board has Eng. Bashir Ojulari as Group CEO and Ahmadu Kida as Non-Executive Chairman.
Huhuonline.com can authoritatively report that embattled Senate president, Godswill Akpabio, put the final nail on the coffin of Kyari, who hitherto had been perceived to be “untouchable.” Kyari was first appointed Group Managing Director (GMD) of NNPC on July 7, 2019, by President Muhammadu Buhari. He completed his four-year term and was reappointed by President Tinubu on October 16, 2023. Despite persistent pressure and rumors of his imminent removal, Kyari enjoyed the support of the president and looked set to remain in his post, until it emerged recently that he was personally behind the continuous impounding of the oil tanker that was seized by Tantita Security Services, a private security firm led by the former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Government Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo.
The MT Harbour Spirit, a 77-meter oil tanker carrying nearly 900,000 barrels of crude oil, was intercepted and impounded on February 9, 2024, near Oporoza, close to Tompolo’s base of operations. The Moldovan-registered vessel, was apprehended by Tantita security agents, while illicitly siphoning crude oil, as part of a broader initiative to combat rampant oil theft and illegal bunkering activities in the Niger Delta. An NNPCL source who elected anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue, confided to Huhuonline.com that the vessel is owned by a prominent Lagos-based oil and gas magnate. This individual was arrested in Lagos and subsequently transferred to Abuja for further questioning regarding his involvement in the illegal operation.
The fate of Harbour Spirit, full of stolen crude oil, which has been held hostage for over a year by Tompolo’s men, has been very frustrating to Nigerian political bigwigs and top government officials, including security personnel, who have been publicly accused by Tompolo of aiding oil thieves. One NNPCL source told Huhuonline.com that Tompolo had compiled a “black list” and given it to Kyari, who had told close confidants of his intention to expose the culprits. According to the source, Kyari shared the blacklist with National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, who gave a copy to the president. The source disclosed that the impounded tanker was tied to powerful businessmen and top politicians, men whose names echo through Nigeria’s oil sector corridors with the same reverence as deities – untouchable, unassailable, and unseen even within Tinubu’s inner circle.
Huhuonline.com also learnt that in an attempt to find a solution, Tinubu secretly sent his chief of staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, to meet Tompolo, and negotiate the tanker’s release, but nothing came out of the effort. In late March, Tinubu asked embattled Senate president, Godswill Akpabio to secretly engage Tompolo to facilitate the tanker’s release. Sources close to Tompolo, whose Tantita security company was awarded a multi-million-dollar contract by Kyari to combat oil theft in Niger Delta, told Huhuonline.com on conditions of anonymity that, although Akpabio was determined to succeed where other previous emissaries had failed, when it became evident that there was very little chance of him convincing Tompolo to release the vessel, without Kyari’s consent, he called the Chief of Staff and told him bluntly that “Kyari must go!”. Noted the source: “Tompolo was just the tail of the dog and Kyari was the head. So, although the tail was wagging with Tompolo making all the public noise, Akpabio and Gbaja, the COS convinced the president to cut the dog’s head [Kyari] in order to stop the tail [Tompolo] from wagging. And that is what happened,” the source said, adding: “all the news reports that Kyari was removed by Dangote, or that he embezzled money from the Port Harcourt and Warri refinery rehabilitation projects; or that he was a dictator who had appointed white people to key positions instead of Nigerians; all these are just rumors and speculations. Kyari stepped on too many powerful toes and paid the price.”
Meanwhile, the identities of the real culprits behind the Harbour Spirit’s stolen cargo remain shielded by layers of bureaucracy, political interference, and elite silence. Reports suggest that some oil companies, local bunkering groups, NNPC officials, and security personnel may be colluding in the theft of crude oil. In late 2022, Tompolo’s team discovered numerous unauthorized pipelines in Delta and Bayelsa States, revealing sophisticated methods employed by oil thieves. In July 2023, operatives from Tantita security intercepted the vessel “MT Tura II” laden with 150 metric tons of stolen crude oil on the Escravos sea in Delta State. The ramifications of crude oil theft are profound: between 2007 and 2020, Nigeria lost over 619.7 million barrels of oil valued at $46.16 billion due to oil theft and pipeline vandalism. Illegal refineries and pipeline breaches have led to severe pollution in the Niger Delta, adversely affecting local communities and biodiversity.
Recent media reports have highlighted the involvement of certain Nigerian businessmen suspected of orchestrating large-scale crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region. While the report does not explicitly name these individuals, other sources have identified several figures linked to such illicit activities. One of them, Kola Aluko, has faced allegations of fraud and money laundering related to oil sales. His company, Atlantic Energy, secured significant oil contracts during the tenure of former Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke. Aluko’s offshore financial dealings were exposed in the Panama Papers published by the ICIJ.
Originally from India, the Sandesara brothers (Nitin and Chetan Sandesara), have established substantial oil operations in Nigeria through their companies, Sterling Oil Exploration & Production Co. and Sterling Global Oil Resources Ltd. Despite facing fraud charges in India, they have continued to expand their oil business in Nigeria, raising questions about the legitimacy of their operations. Calls and emails to Akpabio’s office were not returned at press time and the president’s chief-of-staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, was also not available for comment.
In a related development, President Tinubu’s appointment of Ahmadu Musa Kida as NNPCL non-executive chairman is yet another damning indictment of his administration’s deep-seated cronyism and utter disregard for the public interest. Far from ushering in the promised era of anti-corruption and transparency, Tinubu has entrenched a culture where personal loyalty and elite networks are rewarded above national merit.
Kida’s appointment is a case study in conflict of interest and backroom deal-making, reeking of allegiance not to Nigerians, but to entrenched oligarchs like Gilbert Chagoury—a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire with intimate links to the president’s inner circle. That Kida sits on the boards of several of Chagoury’s companies, including ITB Nigeria Limited, which recently landed a jaw-dropping $700 million contract to renovate Lagos’s ports, is not merely coincidental—it is symptomatic of Tinubu’s tendency to consolidate power among the few while millions languish without jobs, electricity, or basic amenities.
The influence doesn’t stop there. Kida also chairs Ponticelli Nigeria, a company majority-owned (51%) by Chagoury and linked to critical oil subcontracting deals. This position places him in a strategic web of decision-making, where he can potentially shape policies and influence deals within the oil sector—a sector Tinubu has notoriously mismanaged Instead of dismantling patronage systems, Tinubu has exacerbated elite capture, giving powerful businessmen even more access to the national treasury.
With Kida also holding senior roles at Pan Ocean Oil, Newcross Petroleum, and Newcross Exploration and Production Limited, the implications are staggering: the same man now occupies key decision-making spaces across a wide swath of the energy landscape, raising serious concerns about regulatory independence, accountability, and fair competition.
This is not governance; it is corporate incest under the guise of national service. Tinubu has elevated the interests of a tightly knit economic aristocracy while undermining any hope of equitable progress for the ordinary Nigerian. Kida’s web of affiliations is not a testament to competence—it is a roadmap to how power and profit remain locked in the hands of the privileged few, while fuel queues, power outages, and environmental degradation continue to plague the rest of the country.
In a just system, such appointments would be flagged for ethical violations or probed for corruption risk. But under Tinubu, they are routine. His presidency has been less about serving the Nigerian people and more about securing legacy projects for his cronies. The people deserve better than to have their future mortgaged by political favoritism and elite enrichment schemes masked as public policy.
