₦airaland Forum

Abbeytoy:
Yaya Bello was granted bail by court of law. Na you people go still cry about witch-hunt if he was not granted bail.

DeLaRue:
But isn't a fundamental part of the problem the fact that the Police, EFCC and other crime prevention organisations are also enmeshed in some degree of corruption.

Also, Teachers, mechanics, Professors, tailors, nurses, lawyers, surveyors, name it. There is corruption everywhere.

What makes a corrupt politician more deserving of arrest than a tailor you give 5 yards to but hides 1.5 yards for himself, and sows you an attire that is 1 size smaller than your normal size?

If you insist that all corrupt politicians must be arrested. I agree, but I also want all corrupt people, including that tailor to be arrested.

But that's not going to happen until we have enough prisons to accommodate at least 50 million manifestly corrupt Nigerians

So it is inevitable that some thieves, including allegedly corrupt politicians will escape. The system simply can't handle the scale of the corruption in the society.

DeLaRue:
Most police investigations are based on a degree of speculation. Police needs to have a reasonable cause to believe that you're connected to an alleged crime to call you in for an investigation.
I believe Mr Yahya Bello underwent that police investigation process, and his case is proceeding in court.

Gas flaring is a practice where oil producers burn off natural gas they consider too “inconvenient” to process. It’s a colonial-era relic we’ve refused to outgrow. And it costs Nigeria over $2.5 billion annually in lost revenue, plus untold damage to health, environment, and foreign investment optics.

Meanwhile, Qatar, with less total gas than Nigeria, powers its entire nation, exports liquefied natural gas (LNG) globally, and has built a sovereign wealth fund of $450 billion from its gas proceeds.
Egypt and Algeria, both gas-endowed but far behind Nigeria in sheer reserves, already power their cities and industries using gas-fired plants—and even export energy to Europe.

The World Is Doing It. Why Can’t We?
• Qatar: Utilized North Field gas to become a top LNG exporter. Their electricity grid is nearly 100% gas-powered.
• United Arab Emirates: Built modular gas plants to run cities in the desert.
• Algeria: Runs industry and homes on piped gas. Exports via Medgaz pipeline to Europe.
• Egypt: Turned gas into power, profits, and peace in its energy sector.

Nigeria has more natural gas than all of them. Combined.

So What’s Holding Us Back?
1. Corruption. Deals around gas processing and flare capture are often buried in bureaucratic delays or hijacked by cronies.
2. Lack of infrastructure. Pipelines, modular plants, LNG storage—these require foresight and coordination. We’ve had neither.
3. Policy sabotage. Flare laws exist. Penalties exist. But enforcement is weak. Oil majors flare with impunity.
4. Short-sighted economics. We chase crude export dollars, ignoring how gas can domestically power factories,

The Way Forward

1. Convert flare sites into power stations. GE and Siemens sell mobile gas turbines. We can deploy them at key oilfields.
2. Sell flare capture rights to Nigerian entrepreneurs. Let private sector handle what NNPC has failed at.
3. Build gas pipelines and use CNG trucking. Even in rural areas.
4. Finance through carbon credits. The global West wants to pay us not to pollute. Why are we saying no?

Misterone:
Stop spewing trash! Put on your reading glasses and read the last paragraph slowly then correct yourself

AndroBlaze:
Oga can you not read what you posted? When did it originally go down to $473k.....if you are still confused go back to your post and read it S-L-O-W-L -Y

AndroBlaze:
I had said I would not reply to you any longer mainly due to your insincerity and laziness, but if this is not cleared up, other people who cannot be bothered to use 10 mins to do simple research will join your bandwagon.

The ECA is funded with dollars and funded by adding the excess dollars of what was budgeted as crude oil proceeds with what we received as crude oil proceeds for that year.

Tinubu was sworn in May 2023 and for these purposes has only prepared ONE budget where we can analyse what he budgeted with what he received, that is the 2024 budget. Please see below a summary of the 2024 budget regarding crude oil proceeds and what was received. You will have to read the biased article S-L-O-W-L-Y to get to the truth (just like your original post), but the truth is there, that's if you want to get there.

https://punchng.com/nigeria-earned-n50tn-from-crude-oil-in-2024-report/

To summarise:

2024 Budget: price:$78, quantity: 649.7m barrels, Total $ generated: $50.68bn (expected)

*2024 Actual crude: avg price: $80.53, quantity: 408.7m barrels, Total $ generated: $32.9bn (at best)

* Please note that this figure does not include condensates sold in 2024 ( which is another +100m barrels), however I believe this is compensated by the fact that some of our crude barrels are already pledged to international borrowers (90k a day to Afriexim bank) and local refineries (at least 30k a day to Dangote) and so on, so I want to use figures I am sure of.

SHORTFALL: $17.78bn

The shortfall stat above is what matters when it comes to growing the ECA as it can only be grown with proceeds from $ crude oil sales and this should show there is no way legally this account can grow when the dollars we received is less than what we budgeted.

As for the N20 trillion extra that we received according to the reporter, he should first go and use that 20 trillion NAIRA to pay off the foreign denominated debts that we have and see the answer Oyinbo will give him !!

So to be fair to you, I understand why you would feel we are flush with cash, when even respected journalists are making the same mistake as shown in this article.

I hope this breakdown helps a bit but I am pretty certain you will still see what you want to see.

Lithiumite:
Why did you deliver skip the part that mentioned it was $272k as at march 2023......tinubu wasn't even president then!! The sad thing is that the ignorant ones are in the majority and would take Ur fallacy as fact.

anonimi:
If Obasanjo is the best president then why did he abandon the candidate of the party that made him president from prison, to support APC disaster of Buhari that ebilokan claimed for his own turn at worsening things?

Do you think that is because Obasanjo was afraid of Jonathan’s sterling success in just five years and didn’t want him to completely outperform him if he did another four years?

Basicend:
You are still mentioning Buhari at this point?

Do you understand how Tinubu has been able to stabilize the naira within the past few months after it's devaluation?

From what you have written above, it will be challenging for u to gets it's dynamics at this point.

Try and read (search) up Cardozo's CBN's recent monitory policy and it's interventions into FX market processes. Take care.

Anyone could have enacted cardozo's policies. We have saved an average of $30 billion dollars from not paying oil and forex subsidies.
Where is all that money going to and why have Nigerians not felt the impact ?
Buhari had to deal with zero to low oil sales during covid. Oil sale in the last 3 years of buhari;s tenure was dismal.

Tinubu is selling oil at $70-$100 dollars since he cam into power
Tinubu is saving money from not paying oil and forex subsidy.
Tinubu is borowoing from IMF and World bank

Nigerians are worse off than Buhari's tenure !!!!! Tell me Mr Cardozo's monetary policies. Whats really going on ?

Gboom:
Why are you arguing blindly, go to school una go say school na scam
Here you are, you find it difficult to differentiate between March 2023 when Buhari was still in power and April 2025 when Tinubu is

jayce232:
From $72.4 million in 2021 down to just $473k in 2025?? Unbelievable!

solreb:
If you read carefully, the current balance of $473k was reached In Mar 20 23 before the current administration took over and has remained unchanged since then.

MyPlugEx:
This means for the past 2years nothing has gone into that account anymore.

From 2021-2023 their was a massive usage of the balance that depleted it. For certainty i can not tell if the self reporting figure of the FAAC stating the balance had been what it is currently since 2023 is true or a mean to shift the blame. But the OPs view stand on fhe fact that the balance remained unchanged despite numerous cut down in subsidies by this current administration.

cyberbro:
I'm not trying to vindicate or accuse Tinubu or Buhari, I just want the facts to be established.

If we're referring to the current administration, the timeline should start from 2023 when he took over office, shouldn't it?

AndroBlaze:
Unku, this is the last time I am replying to you. Excess Crude Account and subsidy have nothing in common. There is no where in the Nigerian constitution that say Excess Crude Oil receipts should be used to fund subsidy...if a President chooses to do so, it is up to him.

As I said in my last post to you, money cannot enter that account unless it is the proceeds of selling Crude Oil over what we budgeted for the year. Unfortunately oil prices keep falling and we keep setting our benchmark price to high so the receipts in that account cannot grow.

Phnuel007:
[b]Awesome — here’s a simple timeline showing how Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account (ECA) balance dropped over the years:

Timeline of Nigeria’s ECA Balance
- 2014:
➔ Around $4.1 billion in the ECA.
(Still fairly strong after the oil boom years.)

- 2015 (Buhari's first year):
➔ Drops to about $2.26 billion.
(Oil price crash + heavy withdrawals.)

- 2017:
➔ About $2.3 billion.
(Some recovery attempts but still withdrawals happening.)

- 2018:
➔ Falls to around $631 million.
(Massive use for state bailouts and projects.)

- 2020 (COVID-19 pandemic):
➔ About $72.4 million.
(Oil prices crash again, government struggles.)

- March 2023:
➔ $473,754.57.
(Basically empty.)

- April 2025:
➔ Still $473,754.57.
(No real change — account is frozen at a very low balance.)

What this shows:
The ECA went from billions of dollars in 2014 to just half a million dollars in 2025 — a 99.99% wipeout in about a decade.[/b]

ALTERNATEID:
We no longer operate ECA now. All the balances have been drawn down to Sovereign wealth fund. NSWIF is now managing any excess from sales of crude and other national savings.

emmyN:
That account was in billions while Jonathan was in office. APC came and destroyed everything.

Phnuel007:
This news basically means:
Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account (ECA) now has only $473,754.57 in it as of April 2025.
The ECA was originally created to save extra oil money (when oil prices were higher than budgeted) and protect the country against oil price crashes or other economic shocks.
But now, the account has been almost emptied — from about $72.4 million in 2021 to just less than half a million dollars.
The ECA balance hasn’t changed for months, meaning no significant savings or additions are being made.
Other accounts like the Stabilisation Account (N63.53 billion) and the Natural Resources Development Account (N72.86 billion) still have money, but the ECA — which was supposed to be a major emergency reserve — is basically dry.

In short: Nigeria's financial cushion against oil price crashes is basically gone, which could make the country vulnerable if oil revenues drop or there’s another economic crisis.
Summary:
The ECA was supposed to protect Nigeria, but years of political withdrawals, falling oil revenues, high debt needs, and weak financial discipline drained it. Now, it’s almost empty at a time when the country could still face serious global economic risks.

NewHe:
Give it to APC and Tinubu, transparency and accountability!

NewHe:
Do you read the content at, all? As March 2023, this administration is still in embryo!