Just when Nigerians clung to a sliver of hope that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) would finally turn a corner, just when we were told a “new sheriff” in Ojulari would bring integrity, we are greeted with the same sickening stench: arrogance, squander mania, and scandal. At a time when millions of Nigerians are choosing between food and transport, when mothers are boiling water to distract hungry children, when salaries are swallowed by inflation and hope is thinner than air; five (5) private jets lifted the dead weight of NNPCL’s top brass to Kigali, Rwanda, for a so-called “retreat.” The price of this grotesque junket, shrouded in lies and lubricated by the blood of a broken economy, is an insult to every citizen scraping for survival. And Bayo Ojulari, the so-called Group CEO of NNPCL, must now be called what he is: the poster child of betrayal, excess, and national insult. Where is the conscience? This moment demands reckoning and let it be clear: Bayo Ojulari must go!
A retreat to Kigali, Rwanda? Would the board of Rwanda’s national oil company fly to Nigeria to hold a “retreat”? Never. Yet the NNPCL’s gluttonous leadership thought it reasonable to jet off in five private aircrafts – yes, five – at a time when the average Nigerian cannot afford a bag of rice or transport to work. Let that madness sink in. Five private jets. Let that settle in your mind like a bitter pill. Not one. Not two. Five – to ferry a coterie of NNPCL executives on the public payroll to a luxury escapade abroad. What wisdom was brewed in Kigali that could not be summoned within Nigeria’s borders? What was accomplished in Kigali that could not have been done in Warri, Kaduna, or Port Harcourt? Did the retreat birth reform? No. Did it end oil theft? No. Did it reduce petrol prices or fix a refinery? Absolutely not. What reform was birthed on foreign soil that justified this orgy of waste? None. Because this wasn’t about reform. This was about revelry. But it did achieve one thing: it made a mockery of Nigerians’ pain.
These jets were not even NNPC’s. They were chartered. At obscene cost. And worse, who funded this circus of shame? Abdullahi Bashir Haske – the same disgraced contractor who owes millions to local and international companies. The same man dragged before the EFCC for fraud. The same individual whose ghost company, Etihad Oilfield Services, was blacklisted for inflating contracts. This is the man who bankrolled NNPCL’s retreat. This is the man who once lorded over Ojulari. Now, he flies him and his cronies around the continent. This is neither reform nor leadership. This is looting in designer suits and private jets. And this sickening spectacle in Kigali is not just a scandal. It is treason draped in the colors of bureaucracy. This is not a retreat. This is a royal banquet for the greedy, staged in foreign lands, paid for by starving Nigerians. We are being governed by a cabal of betrayers, not leaders.
Let us not mince words: Ojulari is knee-deep in the filth. The conflict of interest is not implied; it is radioactive. That Haske once lorded over him in a corporate setting, and now reemerges as a patron of his leisure, is not coincidence. It is corruption – naked, unrepentant, and deadly. There is no ambiguity anymore. Ojulari is not a reformer; he is a re-brander of rot and corruption. He has taken Mele Kyari’s playbook of foreign retreats and gilded it with even more arrogance. Last year, it was Qatar. This year, it’s Kigali. Tomorrow, perhaps Monaco. The names change, the waste remains. Different driver, same reckless vehicle. Worse still, not a single board member raised their voice against this vulgar escapade. Not one. That silence is complicity. Every director, every official who boarded those jets, who sat in Kigali hotels while Nigerians groaned under fuel hikes and a crumbling naira, is complicit in this national betrayal. They should be ashamed to show their faces in public.
And yet the rot runs even deeper: sources allege the only reason this private jet arrangement wasn’t canceled was because of “the money they stood to make.” If that does not chill your blood, nothing will. That is not mere incompetence – it is a scream of corruption and a gleeful betrayal of public trust. It is a neon sign that NNPCL is no longer a national company – it is a gangster cartel cloaked in bureaucracy.
This is the behavior of a man who has mistaken the national oil company for a personal oil well; drilled not for public resources, but for his personal profit and power. But is NNPCL now a laundromat for political ambition? Is public money being funneled through disgraced intermediaries to bankroll 2027 campaigns? When a failed contractor, blacklisted and under investigation, is also the son-in-law of a presidential aspirant; Nigerians deserve more than silence. They deserve justice. And when the Chief Corporate Communications Officer resigns in protest, what clearer sign is needed? What more thunderous signal must the heavens send before President Bola Tinubu acts? NNPCL is imploding. Its leadership is compromised. Its integrity, if it ever existed, is now just ash swirling in the winds of greed.
Mr. President, this is your test. Ojulari must go. Ojulari, you should not only explain; you should resign or be fired. The NNPCL board must be purged. This retreat must be investigated. And this government must decide whether it stands with the people or with the parasites who drink champagne while citizens starve. Ojulari has disgraced the very institution he was hired to reform. He has fraternized with tainted figures, blown public funds on leisure, and led with a smugness that spits in the face of every struggling Nigerian. He is not fit for that office. He is not fit to manage a kiosk, let alone a national corporation. Mr. President, you must not shield him. You must not pretend this is normal. You must act—now. This is not just a scandal. This is sabotage. The real question is not whether this was wrong. The real question is: How much deeper must Nigeria sink before we say enough? Mr. President, enough. Call the looters out and hold them to account. To remain silent now is to become an accomplice. This is not reform. This is rot. And it is time to cut it out before it consumes what’s left of our dignity.
