₦airaland Forum

Why has the home State of Mr President - Lagos not supported the bill? Irrespective of the reasons, it is bad optics.

Good move by FG and great collaboration with LASG. Repairs of Ozumba Mbadiwe Road (Bonny Camp to Admiralty Road Lekki Junction) start same weekend. Hope it will be well managed, traffic wise.

The analysis should take the following into consideration;

1. Accretion to Excess Crude Account is based on excess ABOVE budgeted oil Price AND Volume. While price average is above budget, volumes are short of budget.

2. Nigeria only has about 55-60% of the volumes produced. The balance belongs to private IOC and NOC members.

Once these are factored into the calculation, a more realistic windfall number can be landed. I estimate between $1 - 1.5bln as windfall till date.

My issue is with those giving this character air time. Huge distraction.

The problem with people like Hashim Olawepo and Adebayo is that talk is cheap. I don't listen to those without pedigree and performance in something similar to what they are proposing. How can Hashim say he will produce 4 million barrels of oil per day in 24 months? It shows a fundamental ignorance of how things work.

What is our production capacity today? No more than 2.5 million barrels per day. To almost double that capacity, you need massive investments in wells drilling, processing facilities installation, oil evacuation pipeline facilities, storage and exporting facilities. Easily we are talking of about $5bln investment TODAY that takes about 4 years of project execution timing to achieve.

What is the basis of N605/litre, going down to N200-300 per litre in some months to come? Same thing with Adebayo's plan and others like them. They simply don't understand what they are proposing.

When I look at candidates' proposals, I layer execution capacity on it. Same as someone telling me that they will get power generation and distribution capacity to more than 30GW in 2 years or so. That thinking lacks a fundamental understanding of how things work. I just listen to it, laugh at it and move on.

In what capacities are Atiku and PO giving Independence Day addresses? Anyone can criticise or react to the President's address but to give yours? What sort of disrespectful attitude is that?

That said, both Atiku's and Obi's addresses were so political. The President's address spoke to Hearts and Minds, minimising politics as much as possible. It reflected on how successive regimes failed to take the necessary actions to turn our situations around and highlighted what it is doing to ensure there is sustainable progress going forward, a journey it has been on for 3 years with ups and downs recorded. That 3 years wasn't enough to have eradicated all the problems created over 60 years of nationhood.

The President acknowledged persisting issues, assured they are going to be things of the past with firm reforms that appear to hurt in the short term. There are good things happening and there are challenges, both of which were acknowledged by the President. He kept politics out of the address.

Enter the two leading opposition candidates who felt entitled to give their own addresses. None reflected on the journey we have been on as a nation in getting here. None took time to acknowledge progress even in regimes where they were significantly part of. All they did was to lament and wail, minimising any progress/positive and amplifying all the challenges and weak points, all to draw voters to themselves.

PO said himself and Kwakwanso visited IDP camps in Sokoto and saw the deplorable situation. I am sure a few of these IDP camps are in Kano where Kwakwanso held sway as a 2-term Governor, Defence Minister of Nigeria and leader of the influential Kwakansiya movement that produced Governors and elected representatives. What did he do to solve the IDP camps situation? What did he do to address the out of school children situation? Talk is cheap.

I would have respected these guys if they properly reflected on our journey, put the good, the bad and the ugly in proper perspective rather than playing cheap politics.

Nothing changed. Wike had planned to back Tinubu long before he invited Obi to that event. Recall Wike was inviting all manner of people to commission projects in Rivers including his adversaries such as Oshio Baba, Buhari and other people he had quarelled with in the past. So Obi's case wasn't different. It was at that event that Obi begged Wike to support his Presidential ambition and was ready to trade away the ambition of the LP Governorship candidate for Rivers State in return for Wike's support. Just leave these politicians alone.

The African Atlantic Gas Pipeline popularly called the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline will be laid in offshore waters along the coastlines of participating countries from Nigeria all the way to Morocco, then extending through the Mediterranean sea to Europe. It will be a huge revenue earning project for Nigeria as the key gas supplying country, enabling us to monetise our vast gas resources.

However, this will be at the detriment of gas utilisation for domestic purposes such as Power here in Nigeria. The simple truth is that our domestic market is not yet matured to commercially utilise gas for Power. At current gas prices enabling Power in Nigeria, we can't still make it work because the system cannot pay market reflective rates for gas. The export market can pay 3-5 times what we currently pay domestically hence those markets will always be favoured by businesses.

I think govt can dedicate 25% of revenue made from this project to develop infrastructure and systems that can enable the domestic market compete over 10-15 years until there is parity amongst both markets. It won't be easy, it will take hard work and painful decisions around removal of electricity subsidies so that a fair price can be paid for gas and Power. A gradual phase out of such subsidies alongside dedicated investment in critical gas, Power and industry infrastructure is required to take us to the promised land. Question is - are we ready?

Some companies have received monies. She should check well.

timbabng:
The headline is meant to be alarming because they know most Nigerians are educated illiterates.

A big chunk of the borrowing was multilateral/bilateral loans. These are project-tied borrowing, so the money may have been approved or drawn down, but projects haven’t yet reached the disbursement stage.

The report also said the budget line for those project-tied loans recorded “zero spending” during the period reviewed, which means the money has not been spent!

Why can't Nigerians read information available online by themselves?!!

The only concern here is that implementation is slow, majorly because of bureaucracy!

It is way beyond their mental capacities and ability to understand. You wonder why one even bothers to respond or engage as all you get are insults.

Kukutente23:
Are you interpreting or correcting him now?
Same people claimed that non-oil revenue has exceeded oil revenue and yet you're here saying oil revenue is bigger
Where are you getting your own info from

I believe the President was wrong. The real situation was made known by Wale Edun. Projected revenue was N42trn while actual receipt was about N11trn, a massive shortfall.

So in that situation, capital expenditure of about N15trn will not be adequately funded. Priority will be given to recurrent expenditure (N14trn) and debt service (N16.8trn).

jogojogo:
The article is mostly true but presented in a way that creates a misleading impression. The numerical data it cites appears accurate and aligns with patterns seen in Nigeria’s official Budget Implementation Reports, where borrowing overruns, capital under‑execution and delays in project‑tied loan disbursements are common.

However, the interpretation is incomplete and framed to imply scandal or hidden misuse of funds without providing the necessary fiscal context. It does not explain that Nigeria’s borrowing covers both recurrent and capital expenditure, meaning it is incorrect to compare total borrowing directly to capital spending as if they should match.

A large share of borrowing goes to salaries, pensions, debt servicing, subsidies and statutory transfers, none of which fall under capital expenditure. The article also omits that Nigeria operates a cash‑based release system, where capital funds are only released when procurement steps are completed and cash is available, which routinely delays capital spending.

Additionally, multilateral and bilateral project‑tied loans are not disbursed immediately; they require procurement processes, environmental assessments and project readiness steps. Therefore, “zero spending” in a given quarter does not mean the money is missing — it often means the project has not reached the disbursement stage.

In summary, the data is accurate but the framing is selective, highlighting borrowing overruns and capital underspending without explaining the structural, procedural and regulatory reasons behind them. This makes the article a half‑truth: factually correct numbers presented in a way that suggests wrongdoing or mystery where there may be none.

Fantastic. Shows you understand the key issues. A balanced view of the issues always helps. Apart from paying salaries, pensions and all those recurrent expenditure, debt servicing also weighs heavily on govt finances. Could govt have negotiated debt repayments? Could it have restructured recurrent expenditure to reduce that particular burden? Govt could do a lot but typical reaction is to make capital expenditure the fall guy.

Kukutente23:
But your god said he met revenue target in August
What are you balabluing here

He met non oil revenue target but not the oil revenue one which is much bigger. Reason why Wale Edun made that outburst which seemed to contradict his boss.

Wale Edun as Finance Minister and the budget office DG are the first people to blame for not been diligent enough in challenging the basis of oil revenue projections because so much depends on it. It is not enough to put your hands up in the sky and say, see oil price was lower than budgeted or that oil volume targets couldn't be met. There are consequences for that as the President ultimately bears responsibility.

NB - we are having a conversation. Need to keep it civil.

Good to see the report in full. My guess is that projected oil revenues fell way short from a volume and price perspective that the additional shortfall on top of the existing budget deficit has to be covered through borrowings, majority of which will go into recurrent expenditure. Of course capital allocations will be the first to suffer. Those that are familiar with managing corporate organisations will understand this.

Why do people believe Kwankwaso will have it easy in 2031? He is from the NW, same region where the past 2 Northern Presidents came from, PMB and UMYA. I don't believe the NE and NC will roll over for yet another NW candidate to become President. It is likely the NE will be favourably disposed.

Good move. We cannot do without massive infrastructure, a gateway to substantial development.

However, the contract sum of N548bln is huge. Compare this with the N750bln for the MMIA airport in Lagos and 2nd Niger bridge.

Isn't this the guy sacked for conflict of interest? There is existing generation capacity of about 13GW but can only transmit and distribute max of 5GW because of structurally and financially deficient discos which the same govt hurriedly put together to reward their cronies with the backing of the law. Why not focus on that rather than building new generating power stations? Priorities, priorities, focus.

15,000 barrels per day at peak production is great but it is not much at all compared with his refinery's 650,000 barrels per day requirement. His salvation WILL NOT come from there.

Furthermore, he is now an upstream producer who will contribute to supplying other domestic refineries part of this crude oil. It is what it is.

Apparently ADC and others have not being paying attention. The decision by PBAT was taken after series of reconciliation meetings between FAAC and NNPCL were held over several months, leading to the position reached during Nov 2025 FAAC meeting. All tiers of govt were part of the reconciliation with the President only assenting to close the loop.

https://fij.ng/article/explainer-no-evidence-n210trn-in-nnpc-audit-is-missing-just-poorly-explained/

Excerpts from above article.

Quote
'FIJ examined the audit documents and found that these figures are likely not missing. The standard definition of accrued expenses is costs NNPCL has incurred but not yet paid for. This means that the NNPCL owes N103 trillion between 2017 and 2023.

Recievables on the other hand, represent money NNPCL is owed, usually from services already delivered. By implication, NNPCL is entitled to N107 trillion from the outside within the same time frame.

Therefore rather than combine, these two figures should cancel out when reconciled, since they represent debts owed by and to the NNPCL.'
End of Quote

In simple accounting terms, receivables should cancel out accrued expenses and a nil off or small residual amount remaining. The issue is with the accounting procedure and approval process which should be done quicker than allowing to linger for years.

Does it make any sense of a missing N210trillion btw 2017 and 2023 when total country budget is about N88trillion within that same time?

Let us assume we produced 1.5million barrels of oil per day in that period (7 years from 2017 to 2023) at an average price of $60 per barrel. NNPCL share in the Joint Ventures and PSCs is roughly 50% for onshore and offshore production. These are generous assumptions because both oil production and price crashed during the covid years of 2020 and 2021. Nonetheless, the calculations are as below;

Revenue = 1.5mil barrels per day x 365days/yr x 7yrs x $60 per barrel × 50% nnpc share = $115billion

From this revenue, you remove Royalty of roughly 15% paid to govt as first line charge.

Revenue - Royalty = $115bln x 85% = $98bln

You then remove cost of producing the oil which is about 30%.

Post cost removal = $98bln x 70% = $68bln

On this amount, nnpc pays roughly 70% tax to govt

Post tax = $68bln x 30% = $20bln

Assume exchange rate of N400/$ for 2017-2022 and N1600/$ for 2023, average is about N600/$ for the 7 year period.

Post tax profit of $20bln at an average exchange rate of N600/$ is = N12T for the entire 7 years.

Let us even assume for argument sake that the entire nnpc revenue of $115bln is converted to Naira, it comes to N69trillion. This is assuming NOTHING at all was remitted to govt from nnpc which is clearly not the case because our budget of N88trn within those 7 years was largely funded from receipts from nnpc.

It is good for people to step back and stop throwing mind boggling figures around. The 2023 audited nnpc report clearly shows some lapses in governance of JVs, pending approvals, inadequate documentation, poor reconciliation etc. Clearly, with those things sorted, the 2024 audited report should look cleaner and better.

Footnote: I have only analysed oil revenues. It is fair to say nnpc earns revenue from gas sales and some of its midstream businesses too but oil revenue still dominates. NNPCL hardly made money in the downstream as they were selling fuel at a loss due to subsidy.

Interesting how those who didn't hold GEJ accountable for not doing the one project that connects the entire Niger Delta together during his tenure are now lambasting current govt for commissioning in phases. I criticised the extremely slow pace of work by RCC on that stretch of road in the past 2 yrs but was pleasantly surprised to see the progress in recent months particularly the Eleme-Akpajo stretch.

Partial commissioning or not, one side of that stretch is motorable and drivable. All we should ask for is the speedy completion of the other side of the dual carraigeway. The road houses the Eleme Petrochemicals, PortHarcourt Refinery and the Onne port, critical national infrastructure.

Why does Olisa Agbakoba SAN not focus on Supreme Court's ruling that mandates direct funds disbursement to local govts that is being frustrated by governors and the local govt chairmen themselves? That is the quickest way to devolve power to the grass roots. With how much money states and local govts have received in past 2 years, what have they done with it other than fritter it away? I will even advocate that rather than sharing the money, we put it in a pot to tackle a key issue like Power.

No money was saved from subsidy removal. We only stopped borrowing money we did not have to fund subsidy hence fixing the hole in our fiscals. We need to pay off all those loans taken to fund subsidy before we start enjoying 'subsidy savings'. That can still take another 2- 4 years in my opinion.

LeopardX:
What about Tony Elumelu? Has he been relegated to the background? Man was parading the streets of Lagos the other day looking for Sallah meat.

Anyways jokes apart, we also need strong institutions, not only strong men....or wise men as the case may be.

My exact question when I read this. Tony is arguably more of Tinubu's right hand man fhan these four. But it seems the President was referring to those 4 as they accompanied him to that occasion. Tony Elumelu wasn't there I believe.

Rivers people should look on the bright side. Fubara's budget was about N800bln or so. This is almost double Fubara's budget. But this does not look like Fubara is returning anytime soon.

When this govt cleared the $7bln obligations to investors, people still tried to twist it. That is $3.4bln IMF + $7bln obligations totaling $10.4bln paid.

States are also paying down their debts substantially. If it is not yet apparent to folks, mark it today - PBAT will ensure he substantially clears Nigeria's debts before he leaves office. Anything to eclipse OBJ's achievements is part of what motivates Tinubu. Watch the space.

The PUNCH Newspaper has always been a fierce critic of the Tinubu administration so no surprise with this editorial. Citing the 'hasty' removal of fuel subsidy and forex harmonisation as two policies that are failing clearly shows the paper's bias and mindset.

However it is looked at, those two policies may have been put in place very fast but delaying those decisions would have made it more difficult to implement as we have seen through the decades. I firmly believe that posterity will reveal that those policies were best pronounced and implemented at the time they were done despite the initial shoddy implementation and hardship it brought in the short term.

The other subtle threat is the comparison of this state of emergency declaration with that of Balewa's govt and the series of events that eventually led to the civil war. If no war broke out when OBJ declared state of emergencies in 2 states and forced out governors in some others, why are the alarm bells now ringing with this declaration?

Natasha said she submitted her CV to highly placed individuals of which this Minister is one. How does she get connected to these 'highly placed individuals'? Not every lady can do that. Is she using her beauty to gain favours?

Key reason for this drop in inflation rate is the change of base year from 2009 to 2023/2024 to reflect recent trends. Why was this base year left for so long at 2009?

Though prices are gradually coming down, it is still not fast enough for ordinary people on the streets. Much reduced inflation rate is a positive step, next is to sustain crash in forex to bring it to below N1000 to the Dollar, alongside continuous crash in petrol prices to N500-600 per litre range and finally massive food price crash.

We need inflation and interest rates at single digits soon enough.

COMPAQ:
Stupid allegation, this PETROAN is talking a lot these days and most of it nonsense.

When we had no refinery working on Nigeria, was the 500k barrels supposed to be piling up somewhere doing nothing? Of course the IOCs and NNPC lifted their share and sold internationally. And some of those contracts that have been in place for years are hard to break. And also asides that IOCs don't want to sell to local refiners due to credit issues. Only Dangote is very likely to pay you. The other smaller ones are huge credit risk. And FG refineries should be buying their crude from NNPC. If NNPC can't supply 150k barrels to its refineries despite owning 55%, is it Shell that should be supplying 500k with it's paltry 30%?

And at the moment there is no specific allocation of volume for domestic refining to anyone. It is supposed to be on a willing buyer willing seller basis. And it will still be in dollars anyway.

Thank you. PETROAN talks too much and I dare say they know very little. Every JV Partner lifts its own share of crude oil for sale. As per PIA, the regulator allocates domestic crude that each equity lifting party delivers to domestic refineries. There are clear commercial terms under which those transactions should take place.

What the regulator should be doing is publishing domestic allocations based on production and what each party is lifting, what is delivered, at what terms and data around shortfalls or oversupply. Then it is clear who is in default and appropriate sanctions meted out.

As you observed, many of the smaller players are not credit worthy and they sometimes don't pay up for crude allocated and supplied. The companies including NNPC that own the larger share are not Father Christmasses. This is the same reason that Dangote sells its refined products in bulk to the very big traders who can pay for such large allocations as many of these smaller marketers don't have the financial muscle to deal.

That said, the data should be published so everyone knows where the fault lies. The regulators must be commended for trying to enforce this, noting that Nigeria needs all the revenues it can get while also robustly supplying the local refineries. Both objectives may not always be in tandem.

It is clear that there is pressure on Julius Berger. The likes of HiTech and Craneburg with more connections to people in govt are waiting on the wings to take over most of these 'lucrative' projects.

COMPAQ:
Oga calm down! Where are you seeing $20b to $30bl from?
Bonga North FID na $5bln
The Total FID na $600mln
This HI FID, I doubt it will be more than $1bln to $1.5bln

This HI project is about $2.5bln. Exxon's Owo offshore project will be about $10bln when it takes FID. Shell Offshore in Nigeria has the Bonga South West oil project of about $10bln and a giant gas field development of about $5bln both at advanced stages of feasibility and concept definition. There are others from ENI, Chevron, Shell Onshore etc. Add this to the $5.6bln from the 2 projects that have taken FID already. Do you still think I should be calming down?