Who can explain NNPC’s N11.2trn security bill?

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has finally put a number to the black hole that has swallowed Nigeria’s oil wealth for years. In its 2025 audited financial report, the company casually disclosed that it spent a mind-boggling N11.2 trillion to “protect the country’s oil and gas assets on behalf of the Federal Government.”

Let that figure sink in. N11.2 trillion. Not billion. Trillion.

For a country that is not at war, not under invasion, and not battling a foreign adversary for its oil fields, what exactly was NNPC protecting oil assets from that cost more than one-and-a-half times its entire declared profit for the year?

The company declared N7.2 trillion in profit after tax and N34.5 trillion in revenue. Yet it claims to have spent N11.2 trillion on security alone. That means for every N3 the company made as profit, it spent nearly N5 on security. In any serious oil company anywhere in the world, security is a cost element, not the dominant cost centre that dwarfs profit. This is not business; it is an absurdity.

Security For What, From Whom?

The language in the audited report is deliberately opaque: “other receivables from federation… advance payments to the federation and costs incurred to secure the country’s oil and gas assets” under “an approved framework between the federal government and the group.”

What framework? Approved by whom? When was it approved by the National Assembly? What are the line items that make up N11.2 trillion in security expenses in 12 months?

Nigeria’s entire defence budget for 2025 – for the Army, Navy, Air Force, fighting Boko Haram, banditry, and IPOB combined – was less than N4.9 trillion. NNPC alone is claiming it spent more than double the national defence budget just to secure pipelines and wellheads.

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