Ayodele Momoh, convener of the Oil & Gas Professionals Forum (OGPF), has rejected denials by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) over claims that oil blocks were allocated to associates of NNPCL Group Chief Executive Officer Bayo Ojulari.
In a statement issued over the weekend, Momoh maintained that at least two blocks from the NUPRC’s recently completed licensing exercise went to people close to Ojulari. He accused the state-owned oil company of attempting to shift attention away from questions surrounding the Marginal Field bid round.
NNPCL had responded on Saturday by clearing Ojulari of wrongdoing and pointing to the company’s performance since he took charge. In its detailed rebuttal, however, OGPF described that response as misleading and designed to divert attention from the allegations concerning the latest marginal-field awards and Ojulari’s alleged connections to beneficiaries.
The forum said 31 companies were selected as winners and that 37 oil blocks were subsequently allocated, with at least two of those awards going to Ojulari’s friends. It argued that NNPCL had not answered fundamental questions about possible conflicts of interest, the identities of the successful bidders or the record of the current management team.
OGPF also alleged that Ojulari’s wife, who works at NUPRC, had a significant role in the process that produced the awards. The group added that one recipient had previously received a Funding and Technical Services Agreement (FTSA) from NNPCL while Ojulari was in charge.
The professionals further said NNPCL’s reported 6% increase in crude-oil output and 5% rise in gas production between April 2025 and August 2026 were below what should be expected from the company’s leadership. They rejected the emphasis on production data, saying higher output figures did not settle the governance and accountability concerns arising from the licensing process.
“NNPCL’s statement seeks to move attention away from the core issues raised by OGPF by concentrating on secondary matters instead of responding directly to the questions,” the forum said. It argued that the central facts had not changed: a woman married to Bayo Ojulari had played an important part in evaluating the bids; at least two recipients were close to him; and one awardee was the first beneficiary of an FTSA approved by Ojulari.
OGPF said those relationships could not simply be dismissed as accidental. In its view, the overlap between personal connections, participation in bid assessments and the final allocation of blocks created legitimate concerns about conflicts of interest and potential private benefit, regardless of how the response was framed.
The forum also said the company’s account of operational progress did not answer the question of accountability. It accused NNPCL of presenting a polished production narrative instead of addressing the integrity issues raised over the bid round.
OGPF added that if the company’s stated objective was to reach 3 million barrels of oil production within two years, an increase of roughly 80,000 barrels represented the pace of progress and should not be presented as a major achievement.
