By Israel Adebiyi

In the heart of Yoruba folklore, there is a child born with mischief stitched into his soul. He is Abiku—the spirit-child who comes into the world, only to die, and return again to inflict fresh sorrow. The desperate mother performs ritual after ritual, consults powerful babaláwos, adorns her child with protective charms, but Abiku always returns, mocking the hope of rebirth. In one telling, the babaláwo himself appears a fruad—his chants loud but empty, his herbs mere weeds.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), formerly NNPC, embodies this tragic metaphor. It is the Abiku of Nigeria’s economic soul. Born in promises, baptized in reforms, renamed with boldness, yet it returns—every time—bearing the curse of failure. No sacrifice, legislation, or rebranding has been able to stop its descent into infamy.

Each administration comes chanting its own incantation. From the Petroleum Industry Bill to the so-called commercialization into NNPCL, none has tamed this entity. Like the mythical child, NNPCL is stuck in a cycle of rebirth without redemption.

Decades after its creation, Nigeria’s national oil company still refines no crude, despite billions of dollars poured into the Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refineries. These refineries remain ceremonial tombstones—massive industrial relics whose pipes no longer carry petroleum but pension burdens. Thousands of workers are paid full salaries at these ghost facilities. Their services neither generate fuel nor add value to the economy. It is a conundrum where work exists in name, and output exists only in fiction.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Nigerian Electricity Lie And The Old Northern Folklore

Yet we continue to fund this lie. As if cursed, every government continues to pump public funds into these dead structures. The anomaly cum insanity deepens when successive administrations spend billions on these infrastructures, in the guise of turn around maintenance without results. What kind of privatized entity relies almost entirely on government goodwill to exist?

Yet again, as if on cue, the spirit-child has returned with blood on its hands.

The latest in this gory saga is the arrest of Umar Isa, the former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the NNPCL, by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over alleged fraud amounting to $7.2 billion. It is a staggering amount, reportedly linked to funds allocated for the so-called overhaul of the moribund refineries. Also in EFCC custody is Jimoh Olasunkanmi, the former Managing Director of the Warri Refinery.

During his tenure as CFO, Umar Isa allegedly supervised the disbursement of these funds—meant to breathe life into the corpse of our refining system. But instead of progress, Nigeria is left with smoke and mirrors. Allegations now hang over Isa and other senior officials for corruption, gross abuse of office, mismanagement of public funds, and receiving kickbacks from contractors.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: The Elephant Must Beware Of The Red Carpet

Among those reportedly under scrutiny are Tunde Bakare, the current MD of the Warri Refinery, as well as Ahmed Dikko and Ibrahim Onoja, both former MDs of the Port Harcourt Refinery. This unfolding scandal has, once again, brought the dark heart of the NNPCL into view—an institution drowning in opacity and defiance of accountability.

And if this wasn’t damning enough, the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, chaired by Senator Aliyu Wadada, has further sounded the alarm. The Committee flagged irregularities running into trillions of naira within the NNPCL’s finances between 2017 and 2023. Eleven damning queries have been issued to the finance team of the company, with a one-week ultimatum to explain where the smoke has been hiding the fire.

Meanwhile, Nigerians are breaking under the weight of rising petrol and diesel prices. The excuse? Fuel subsidy removal. The justification? Market forces. But who reaps these market rewards? Certainly not the citizens.

What NNPCL should be doing—investing, refining, generating revenue—it has failed to do. But it excels at opaqueness. For years, reports have emerged of trillions of naira in unremitted revenue, unaudited accounts, and shady swap deals. The claim of being a commercial entity has become a curtain drawn across fraud.

Even more troubling is the continued practice where the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria also serves as the Minister of Petroleum. It is a conflict of interest institutionalized. From Obasanjo to Buhari and now Tinubu, this tradition has shielded the petroleum sector from true scrutiny. And what of the National Assembly? Constitutionally empowered to perform oversight, they too have become complicit, rubber-stamping oil budgets and feasting on PR briefings without demanding true accountability.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: [OPINION] The Cry Of The Waters: When Flood Became A Funeral

The Petroleum Industry Act, which was meant to force transparency and push NNPCL toward true efficiency, now looks like yet another incantation in the growing pile of failed chants. It has not delivered competition, efficiency, or openness.

The tragedy is sharpened when one looks across to Dangote Refinery, a private investment that, without state subvention, is already setting a new benchmark. Dangote’s effort, flawed or not, at least reflects progress. NNPCL, by contrast, remains a mythical burden—too big to work and too sacred to touch.

So what do we do with a child like Abiku?

In the old stories, the only solution was brutal: expose him, reject the charm of return, and deny him the chance to keep the family in perpetual mourning. For Nigeria, this means a complete overhaul of the petroleum sector, not cosmetic renamings. It means dismantling what doesn’t work, opening up what is hidden, and giving way to systems that serve the people, not powerful cartels.

We must probe the NNPCL—not with press releases but with forensic audits. We must legislate actual penalties for failure and demand restitution for public funds misused. And we must, finally, separate governance from business.

Nigeria cannot afford to keep nurturing a child that brings no joy, only sorrow.

Until we are bold enough to lay Abiku to rest, we will continue to mourn over the carcass of our oil dreams.