ABUJA/Nigeria: The Senate’s ad-hoc committee investigating Nigeria’s persistent crude oil theft on Tuesday intensified its work with an oversight visit to the leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), seeking clearer insights into past leakages and present operational realities.
Speaking after the engagement, the committee chairman, Senator Ned Nwoko, described the visit as a critical step toward ensuring that the Senate’s final report is “factual, defensible, and grounded in verifiable data.”
Nwoko disclosed that the committee has already submitted three interim reports to the Senate, each supported by extensive analysis, expert consultations—both local and international—and credible documentation. These findings, he said, expose years of major revenue losses within Nigeria’s oil sector.
He noted that the probe is not limited to historical discrepancies but also aims to understand current trends in upstream operations.
“While the historical challenges are significant, it is equally important to understand what is happening now within NNPC’s upstream operations,” he said.
During the closed-door session with NNPC officials, the committee sought clarity on past operational lapses that enabled large-scale crude theft and revenue diversion. It also reviewed ongoing reforms aimed at stabilising production and safeguarding critical pipeline assets.
According to Nwoko, the committee intends to reconcile documented past losses with updated operational data to gauge the effectiveness of present mitigation measures.
He added that insights gathered from this stage of the investigation will form a core component of the committee’s final report to the Senate.
