Four months after his appointment, the tenure of Bashir Bayo Ojulari, the group chief executive officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, is hanging by a thread as allegations surrounding renewed contracts with politically exposed individuals are threatening to unravel President Bola Tinubu’s reform agenda. At the heart of the controversy are his past consulting ties with Etihad Oilfield Services, a contractor to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC); AA & R Investment Group, a contractor handling drilling operations at the Kolmani River- II Well, Bauchi State and links to political figures, notably Abdullahi Bashir-Haske. Etihad Oilfield Services, which has come under the radar of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for alleged financial impropriety is chaired by Abdullahi Bashir-Haske, a businessman closely associated with Atiku Abubakar, a former vice-president and President Tinubu’s main rival in the 2023 presidential election. One senior oil executive pointed to Ojulari’s earlier comment about resuming drilling at the Kolmani oil field in northern Nigeria, a project managed by Messrs Etihad Oilfield Services, a subsidiary of AA&R Investment Group, widely seen as politically symbolic, as evidence of his political naivety. “He may have meant well, but it was politically incorrect, a bit surprising and worrying,” a senior oil executive told BusinessDay. Read also: Ojulari-led NNPC resumes monthly report after nearly 3 years BusinessDay’s findings showed Haske is also the group managing director of AA & R Investment Group, an integrated services firm serving a clientele across the agribusiness, oil and gas, maritime, support services and logistics, and information technology sectors. According to the Cable, the NNPC GCEO has been a subject of money laundering investigations following the alleged transfer of millions of dollars to the account of AA&R Investment Group. Bashir-Haske has a long and controversial history with the NNPC. During the tenure of Maikanti Baru as GMD from 2016 to 2019, he reportedly enjoyed substantial patronage from the national oil company. That relationship was severed when Mele Kyari took over, as he allegedly cut off Haske from NNPC Limited contracts. However, upon becoming GCEO in April, Ojulari is said to have reinstated Haske’s privileges—prompting investigations by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The EFCC has reportedly interrogated Haske over alleged large-scale money laundering using complex financial schemes. There are now fears within the presidency that, through these dealings, NNPCL funds may have inadvertently been funnelled to political opposition groups. Audit clouds & senate pressure Ojulari’s leadership is also being tested in the public domain. Last Tuesday, he appeared before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts to respond to audit queries concerning an unaccounted N210 trillion reportedly found in NNPC’s books between 2017 and 2023. The sum includes N103 trillion in liabilities and N107 trillion in assets, according to the Auditor-General’s report. The committee, chaired by Senator Ahmed Wadada (Nasarawa West), clarified that the funds were not declared missing or stolen but needed proper reconciliation and explanation. “These are questions from the Auditor-General’s report,” said Wadada. “This is a constitutional oversight. We’re giving the NNPC three weeks to submit written responses, after which the GCEO and other top management staff will reappear for a formal defence.” Read also: Ojulari’s absence stalls Senate N210tn NNPC investigative hearing Ojulari, who was attending such a session for the first time, admitted that he needed more time to understand the scope of the issues. “I’ve been in office just over 100 days,” he said. “This is a huge national assignment, and I want to get the right team, engage the external auditors, and reconcile all accounts properly before responding. I assure you; this will be taken seriously.” Although he requested four weeks, the committee insisted on three, a deadline that now looms over Ojulari’s embattled administration. Silence from NNPC Attempts to get an official response from NNPC regarding Ojulari’s alleged links to political contractors or his rumoured resignation proved abortive. The company has been without an official spokesperson since Olufemi Soneye resigned in July. “The absence of a spokesperson is making things worse,” noted an energy sector analyst. “There’s a vacuum in communication, and that’s allowing rumour to fill the gap. In a corporation as strategic as NNPCL, silence is never golden.” According to a report by TheCable, internal friction is growing, and some stakeholders believe Ojulari’s ties to opposition-linked contractors, specifically Etihad Oilfield Services, amount to a conflict of interest. That perception is said to be exacerbated by the fact that Etihad’s deals with NPDC continue to attract regulatory and legal scrutiny. Reform or Resistance? Supporters of Ojulari, however, argue that he is being targeted for trying to clean up the NNPC’s entrenched culture of patronage. They point to his insistence on making the company fully compliant with international corporate governance standards, which includes resisting unvetted contract awards and politically motivated postings. Another senior oil executive told BusinessDay that Ojulari “was hired to shake the system and return the corporation to profitability. If that makes him enemies, so be it.” He added, “If we want to get serious about reform, then we can’t keep pushing out every executive who refuses to play politics. The GCEO should be judged based on performance and integrity, not old associations.” Nevertheless, even those sympathetic to Ojulari acknowledge that political survival is part of the job. “You don’t run NNPC in a vacuum,” said a policy adviser to the petroleum ministry. “No matter how skilled or honest you are, you must carry key stakeholders along, especially in an election-driven country like Nigeria.”