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The Nigerian state oil company’s disclosure that it spent $8 billion to protect energy infrastructure has sparked calls for an inquiry into how the funds were used and cast fresh light on the country’s inability to protect key economic assets.
Nigeria is Africa’s top crude oil producer and exporter, with sales accounting for around 90% of foreign exchange earnings. But oil revenue has been particularly constrained by theft and pipeline vandalism that has cost the country about $300 billion in recent years, compounding in a worsening security crisis that has hampered the overall economy. At the same time, there have long been concerns about the alleged misuse and diversion of Nigeria’s oil money, with the state company NNPC often at the center of the storm.
Analysts and government critics are now raising fresh questions about the company’s $8 billion security costs in 2025, which marks a 26% increase over the previous year.
“Nigerians cannot tell from these totals what was spent on pipeline surveillance,” Atiku Abubakar, a leading challenger to President Bola Tinubu in upcoming elections in January, said in a statement. “What was paid? Who was paid? For what work? Where are the results?”
Tinubu ended a fuel subsidy scheme three years ago that cost $10 billion in 2022. NNPC did not respond to a request for comment.
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NNPC reported a 33% rise in post-tax profit to $5.4 billion for full year 2025 on the back of Nigeria’s highest crude oil production output in five years. But its revenues fell year-on-year by 24% due to lower crude oil prices in the dozen or so months that preceded the onset of the Iran war this year.
It owns a 5,000 km crude oil and petroleum products pipeline network across Nigeria and recorded more than a dozen breaks along its pipelines last year and five in the first six months of 2026.
Alexander’s view
Election season in Nigeria comes with heightened sensitivity around money flows, especially when it involves the government’s largest moneymakers. And so the discourse around NNPC’s announcement that it will charge the government $8 billion for securing oil and gas facilities has assumed political undertones with polls set to open in about 100 days.
It may not account for much, however. NNPC has scaled through several inquisitions over the years, mostly unscathed, and is a much larger, consequential company for the Nigerian government than ever before.
Earlier this year, a Nigerian senate committee headed by an opposition party lawmaker ordered NNPC to account for nearly $160 billion in unreconciled figures in the company’s audited financial statements between 2017 and 2023. That matter remains unresolved. Calls for a probe into the latest controversial figures — which are far much smaller by comparison — already seem to be falling on deaf ears.
Room for Disagreement
Attempts to damage Nigerian oil pipelines fell by 87% between 2022 and last year, a private company contracted to guard the Trans Niger Pipeline in the southern Niger Delta region said in November. It credited the improvement with increased participation of communities in providing intelligence for security.
Notable
- TotalEnergies reached a final investment decision on a $800 million offshore natural gas project last month which NNPC said affirmed the Nigeria gas sector’s “growing viability.”