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Tinubu Govt Plans To Sell Majority Stake In NNPCL To 'Cronies' After 2027 Elections, Expert Alleges
Tinubu Govt Plans To Sell Majority Stake In NNPCL To 'Cronies' After 2027 Elections, Expert Alleges
NEWS
The Nigerian Record
9/28/20264 min read
Nigerian energy and policy expert Izielen Agbon has alleged that the Tinubu government is planning to sell shares of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to private investors shortly after the 2027 general election, reducing the government's ownership stake from a controlling position to a minority holding.
Agbon made the claim as guest speaker at a webinar organised by the Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond (ASCAB), chaired by human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN), on the theme "Working-Class Solutions To PMS Price Increases And Fuel Subsidy Removal."
He described the alleged plan as dating back several years.
"The Tinubu government is planning to sell the shares of NNPCL immediately after the election," he said. "The plan they made in 2023 was that after the election, before 2030, they are going to sell the shares of NNPCL to private investors."
According to Agbon, the plan would see the government's stake in NNPCL fall to a minority position.
"They are going to sell it so that the government will only own 35% of the shares of NNPCL," he said.
He described the model the government intends to follow as one already applied to Nigeria LNG (NLNG), where international oil companies (IOCs) hold a majority stake.
"They call it the energy model," Agbon said. "They claim that the Nigerian liquefied gas model is sufficient because the government owns less than 50%, and the international IOCs are the ones that have 51% of the Nigeria LNG."
Current ownership structure
Agbon laid out NNPCL's present ownership structure as context for the alleged plan. He said Nigeria holds 37 billion barrels of proven crude reserves and that NNPCL, as the entity managing those resources, is currently "100% owned by the Nigerian government," with shares split under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA): 50% held by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated, and the remaining 50% by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, a portfolio held by the President himself.
The Core Allegation And Its Stated Risk
Agbon characterised the plan as a means of transferring effective control over the nation's oil resources into private hands once electoral pressure has passed.
"Immediately, we sell the shares of NNPCL to our cronies. And when you get the shares of NNPCL in private hands, what they have done is to just privatize the resources of the nation."
He argued the consequences would extend well beyond share ownership, given NNPCL's statutory role.
"If you control NNPCL and the law says NNPCL is the one in charge of all our government resources, then you actually have access to our government resources," he said. "That's what they are planning. And that will be very, very terrible for us. Because we will have no government-owned oil-producing company, no government-owned refinery, no government… Anything belonging to NNPCL will be privatized."
Agbon also alleged that opacity has shielded similar arrangements from scrutiny in the past, pointing to the NLNG model as a precedent.
"Nobody hears about all this corruption with our LNG because it's run by private sector business," he said. "The government has no business with business. And me, I say business has no business in government. But that's the argument they are making."
Falana's response and the NLNG dividend dispute
Responding to Agbon's presentation, Falana said the alleged plan was not new but should now be elevated as a campaign issue. "The information you have just given us about the plan, about the secret plan to sell the shares of NNPC; they have been toying with it, but I think we also must make it part of the campaign," he said.
Falana used the moment to expand on the NLNG comparison Agbon had raised, stating, "Contrary to what they are saying, Comrade, Nigeria owns 49 percent of the shares, while the IOC owns 51 percent," he said.
He added that while the bulk of NLNG's workforce is Nigerian, dividend accounting has remained a point of contention.
"What is important, Comrade, is that 95 percent of staff, management staff, and their employees are Nigerians," he said. "But because it operates under what they call international standards... the federal government, or rather the NNPC, collects the dividends on behalf of Nigeria. It has always stolen. That money is not paid into the federal account."
Falana cited figures on the scale of the alleged shortfall.
"The LNG has made about $49 billion in dividends, out of which about $22 billion has gone to the federal government," he said. "But NEITI (Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative) repeatedly maintains that this money ought to be paid to the federal account, and the government has never done so."
Call to make it an election issue
Agbon framed the NNPCL matter as one of several demands he said should be forced onto candidates ahead of the 2027 election, alongside lower petrol prices and a higher minimum wage.
"There is a need for us to stop and use this opportunity, not only to fight to sell lower petrol prices, but to fight them to increase minimum wage, and to fight them to say you cannot sell the shares of NNPCL," he said.
He described the company's assets as belonging to the public rather than to any single administration.
"That is the inheritance of the citizens of Nigeria as a nation. It's not for sale. People are just elected to be leaders for four years, at maximum eight years. You cannot sell the whole house because you've been elected to serve the people for eight years."