NNPCL’s Group CEO, Bayo Ojulari, has completed his first 100 days in office, sparking both praise and criticism. Here’s a breakdown of the upside and downside of a 100-day term that is making tongues wagging
President Bola Tinubu, on April 2, 2024, appointed Mr. Bayo Ojulari to the position of Group Chief Executive Officer after retiring Malam Mele Kyari who had served as GCEO from 2019. In appointing Ojulari to the position, the President mandated him to enhance operational efficiency, restoring investor confidence, boost local content, drive economic growth, and advance gas commercialization and diversification.
With this clear presidential mandate, oil industry watchers and Nigerians expected a new dawn at the national oil company. Instead, sources within the company say Mr. Ojulari’s leadership of the company may be creating disaffection among staff and disbelief towards the realization of objectives of the organization.
NUPENG Reads Riot Act
Barely four days after taking the seat, workers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited on April 8, warned the new Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC, Bayo Ojulari, against appointing external persons into top management positions.
The staff who are members of the NNPC Group Executive Council of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria threatened to shut down operations if the GCEO brings in external persons as executive vice presidents, deputy managers, and managers.
In a letter sent to the NNPC Chief Human Resource Officer and acknowledged the same day, the union leaders said there are capable hands to head those management positions within the company.
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Referenced, PEN/NUP.GEC.SEC. 04/25/04.2, the letter was titled, ‘Filling of Top Management Positions in NNPC Limited With Externally Recruited Personnel is Unacceptable to PENGASSAN & NUPENG GEC’.
The letter, jointly signed by the PENGASSAN GEC Secretary, Amaoge Chukwudi; his NUPENG counterpart, Paulosa O. Paulosa; the PENGASSAN GEC Chairman, Solomon Orieji; and his NUPENG colleague, Baba Kaumi, congratulated Ojulari and other board members appointed by President Bola Tinubu, who sacked former GCEO Mele Kyari and his team.
They described the appointment of non-staff into management positions as an unjust action capable of undermining staff career growth, saying they may not guarantee industrial harmony if the trend is repeated.
They threatened, “We must, therefore, caution against any unjust action that undermines the career growth of deserving staff members of our company. If this warning is ignored, we cannot guarantee the continuation of industrial harmony within NNPC Limited.
“Therefore, this letter serves to put the management and the Board of NNPC Limited on notice that PENGASSAN and NUPENG categorically reject any recruitment or appointment of senior or management staff above the SS6 cadre (specifically within the SS5 to M2 cadre) from outside the organisation. Any attempt to do so will be met with strong resistance, including a total shutdown of operations.”
100 Days After
The NNNPC under Ojulari has announced that the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) Gas Pipeline has successfully crossed the River Niger, boosting the hope of the project’s completion by Q4 2025.
Group Chief Executive Officer who personally announced the significant milestone while delivering a Keynote Address at the 24th NOG Energy Week (#NOGEnergyWeek), said the feat was achieved through effective and innovative contract reengineering and industry collaboration.
He also disclosed that for the first time in a long while, the nation enjoyed 100% crude oil pipeline availability throughout June 2025.
He said the feat, which was possible through the industry-wide security interventions led by the NNPC Ltd., helped to boost crude oil production.
He, however, called for more investments to boost production, adding that NNPC Ltd. has been able to turn the narrative around by consistently meeting its cash-call obligations to Joint Venture operations.
He said the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA 2021) has placed NNPC Ltd. in a good position to live up to its responsibility of leading the industry in financing projects.
Downsides of The Journey
After spending 100 days as GCEO of this company, an anlysis of over three months leadership of Ojulari showed he has more to do to convince staff and many stakeholders who have high expectations about him.
Already, there has been bickering among mid-level employees of NNPCL on Ojulari’s style. One of them who pleaded anonymity pointed to what he alleged to be the GCEO’s profligacy, noting that many staff are now raising concern on how Mr. Ojulari allegedly spends the company’s funds recklessly.
Ojulari’s alliance with infamy, he said, began upon his assumption of office. His first main step was to take members of the newly constituted board of the company on a retreat to Rwanda. He wasted millions of Naira hiring five private jets to convey the board members to the retreat which many say could have been held in-country.
Indeed, this paper recalls that Nigerians were livid with anger at what they felt was the recklessness of the NNPCL’S GCEO at a time millions of Nigerians were struggling to feed.
Dr. Reuben Abati, a former presidential spokesman, and now presenter of a popular morning talk show on Arise TV had captured the mood of Nigerians when he said on his programme:
“I find it insulting and offensive. They give you a job, the first thing you do, is you say you are going on a retreat, and you are not just going on a retreat, you are going on a retreat to Rwanda. In Kigali. Okay, so why is Rwanda the destination. Bayo Ojulari is 60 years old. He was 60 recently. He must have enough basic commonsense that he cannot operate the way other Nigerians operate. You just think that this is an opportunity to live large. If he does that, President Tinubu should remove him immediately.
“What everyone was asking for is a new dispensation in NNPC and you get there, and you people put yourselves in a private jet, in a chartered flight and you go off to Rwanda to go and do retreat. You can do it in Abeokuta, you can do it in Cross Rivers, and you can do it in Akwa Ibom. What are you people going to look at?”
Checks at NNPCL Towers also show that aside from his extravagance, top management and staff of the company are embarrassed by his many flip-flops on policy.
In an interview with Bloomberg on July 11, he had told the world that the refineries were going to be sold because after investing so much over the years to repair them, they were still not fully operational. Suddenly on Wednesday, July 30, Mr. Ojulari, in what is now being labelled by stakehilders as a policy summersault, told everyone during a townhall meeting with staff that they were no longer going to be sold.
“How can someone speak from both sides of the mouth at the same time. To think that he even based his reversal decision on staff not properly briefing him, makes things worse. This is just one of many such policy summersaults we witness here,” another senior management staff of the company said.
The staff added that this attitude of the NNPCL GCEO points to a more serious malady-incompetence.
Another landmark during Ojulari’s 100 days is the report about the whereabouts of over N201 trillion at the NNPC.
Recently, the Senate Committee on Public Accounts summoned him to explain the whereabouts of the funds allegedly not remitted to the coffers of the Federal Government.
While appearing confused as the Senators questioned him, the GCEO begged for more time to consult with the company’s auditors who were inexplicably absent at the hearing.
A Women’s Man
Ojulari is alleged to have brought with him to the NNPC Towers, a handful of aides who are women. Though this newspaper perceived that this might be a promotion of gender balance at the NNPC, this has not gone down well with some old staff who felt the new women have been placed in key positions in the company.
In a bid to justify what some union leaders termed the irresponsible placement of his horde of ‘old girls’ club in top positions, Ojulari is said to have immediately embarked on a promotion spree to provide a cover for them. “This seems to have backfired as the new placements is setting the national oil company on a path of industrial disharmony and internal combustion,” another staff said.
A Visit To Rwanda, None To Asset In Nigeria
In the 100 days that he has been in office as helmsman of NNPCL, staff say, Mr. Ojulari is yet to visit any NNPCL facility let alone the refineries, and its other vital assets spread across Nigeria. Rather he has an unquenchable appetite for hosting courtesy calls and solidarity visitations.
Reactions From NNPC
Efforts to get official reaction from the NNPC was fruitless as the company has no known spokesperson since Femi Soneye stepped aside, but a staff of the company referred this newspaper to an earlier statement alleging campaign of calumny against the Ojulari-led management.
The statement issued on June 27 reads; “The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has uncovered an emerging coordinated sabotage campaign being waged by a syndicate of known and faceless actors, both outside and within various levels of the state oil company.”
The company also stated that the group’s “tactics include planting scandalous and fabricated reports, curated to distract leadership, mislead the public, and undermine the commitment of our dedicated workforce and reform-minded Nigerians.
“These are calculated efforts by those who feel threatened by reform, transparency, accountability, and change—clear evidence of the lengths to which they will go to obstruct the transformation of Nigeria’s foremost energy institution.”
It said: “We expect a surge of defamatory content in the days and weeks ahead. NNPC Limited remains undeterred. The transformation is underway, and no amount of sabotage will stop it.
“We urge our dedicated staff, stakeholders, and all patriotic Nigerians to stay focused, ignore the noise and not be didiscouraged.
Clouds of Doubt
Expressing doubt whether Ojulari won’t plunge the company into a deeper abyss, one of the union leaders at the NNPC said; “What is on the lips on many people at the Towers is that we may be in for a long trouble with a record of negative moves by the GCEO outshining the positive ones.”
Last Line
Beyond allegations and counter allegations, statistics available from Mr. Ojulari’s 100 days in office showed that he has an herculean task to reaffirm the huge trust on the task reposed in him by the President, the staff and stakeholders in the Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. Overall, Ojulari’s first 100 days have been marked by both progress and controversy, with the future of NNPC Ltd hanging in the balance.
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