When an office is called a political one, one of the things it does to the occupier is that it turns him or her to a politically exposed person. Your action and inactions really matter, and in an environment where even the most closest person to you does not mind taking your position, it is always like walking on an egg shell. There are things you can do and there are things you cannot just do. While lessons will always be learnt, some hard way, (since no one can be totally beyond mistakes) the main aim is to ensure optimum service delivery, enhanced productivity and ensuring that good hands are not sacrificed on the altar of needless political expediency.
One lesson Bashir Bayo Ojulari will have been learning in the last two weeks when rumours of his purported resignation as the Group Chief Executive Officer, GCEO, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPC-L, is that no matter how high a position is, it is always a slippery one and just one false move, the occupier would become history and the society would move on. It is relieving that Ojulari is back at his desk.
Ojulari is a capable hand. Anyone close to the behemoth called the NNPC would know that he came into that office with a rich resume that wowed those who gave him the job. He has paid his dues in the oil and gas industry and it was no surprise that he rose to the top in one of the world’s most prominent oil production companies, Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC.
Bayo Ojulari is an internationally trained Nigerian expert in petroleum process and production engineering. He is one Nigerian whose impact in the oil and gas industry is not only monumental, but also transformative. He started his career in Elf Petroleum Nigeria in 1989 and later joined Shell in 1991. He spent 3 decades in Shell and retired in 2021 after serving as the Managing Director of one of shell’s company in Nigeria called Shell Nigeria Exploration & Production Company Limited. The positive events and transformations that have taken place in NNPC in the last 4 months, since 2nd of April, 2025, when Ojulari was appointed the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) has further proven beyond doubt, that indeed Ojulari is a name in the global oil and gas industry.
It cannot get better than that. Can it? It can. It can also get worse if the optics are not handled well. Virtually any Nigerian above the age of 30 knows that the NNPC is one cesspool of malfeasance and that dates back to decades when crude oil became the nation’s economic mainstay. It is one sector which is seen as the grease that lubricates the machine that produces the proverbial national cake. Operating in the sector and getting massive returns can give a very good live that could only be imagined. And when you have such lucrative sector in a country where institutions are hopelessly but notoriously weak like Nigeria’s, you cannot do away with abuse. That is to be shamelessly expected.
The old NNPC became the new Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPC-L. It is now fully owned, albeit 50% each, by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated and Ministry of Petroleum Incorporated. The name change was consequent upon the passing and signing into law of the Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, of 2021.
When Ojulari came on board, he was determined to make an impact and also clean the Augean stable. But before then, there was the little matter of the production output of the NNPC-L. As earlier mentioned, the old NNPC was like the proverbial load carrier to the market who always has the hope and belief that either his patron sells or not, he or she must surely get paid. Even when the conglomerate was operating at a loss, at least according to its papers at the end of the year, workers still received salary credit alerts at the end of the month.
There is an arm of the called the NNPC Exploration and Production Limited, NNPC E&P. The NNPC E&P is a NNPC 100% owned and the company is based in Benin City, the Edo State capital. Let it be noted that the NNPC E%E is fully engaged in direct exploration and production. May be credit to Ojulari or not, before he took office, the company was struggling to produce about 250,000 barrels per day. However, as at the time of writing this, company is currently producing 330,000 barrels per day. IT must be noted that the benchmark was 300,000 barrels per day. This stands as the highest ever in the company’s history and marks a bold step forward in crude oil production and national development. Ojulari and his management team deserve their flowers, even if grudgingly. This is because this could only have been achievable because of the strategy that Ojulari and his team of leadership deployed. Ojulari’s commitment to fostering a more inclusive and development-oriented work environment has not only promoted increased productivity but has also boosted the morale of the workforce across all NNPC work strata. But he did not really perform any magic. He simply brought his background in the upstream sector of the petroleum industry to bear on the operations of the NNPC E%P to bear and the result was there for everyone to see.
As earlier stated, the old NNPC was a cesspool of sleaze and corruption. Just get your hands into the cookie jar and as long as the cabal in the seat of power had your back, you can get away with anything. It is an entrenched culture of financial malfeasance that dates back to as far any one can recollect. The oil and gas behemoth had been committed to some contractual arrangements that were not bringing any value to the organisation.
It must be noted that some of these contracts were just there to feather the hedonistic nests of one godfather or the other who were close to the corridors of power. These contractual obligations had little or no consideration for due process or checks and balances. The month would end and someone would pick up his or her cheque. It was that easy; painfully easy. The shocking thing was that those who put these phony arrangements in place expected the then NNPC to be operating with profit and be making returns to the government.
However, when Ojulari came in, he made bold, but inherent dangerous moves, to stem the tide. His contract optimisation approach came out with only one result: NNPC-L would retain only the contracts that added value to its business bottom line. In other words, if the contract was not helping NNPC to avoid cost, and it’s not increasing production or revenue, or it’s not increasing capacity and viability, then such contract would be dropped.
If Ojulari expected those who were benefiting from these bazaars to praise him, then he must have been the most naïve human being on earth. They were livid. Even some insiders within the new NNPC-L considered some of these moves to be too drastic. But Ojulari was unperturbed. Yes, unperturbed. But if he was expecting those who were affected to fold their hands, he was wrong. Dead wrong.
The old NNPC was a government agency. And within any government orgnaisation, there is always this laid-back attitude which underlines the fact that there is this innate feeling that performance and productivity would not affect salary at the end of the month. Ojulari made moves to change this mentality. There was the much-needed cultural shift characterised by open communication, inclusive town halls, and deeper engagement with staff at all levels. This has fostered a more connected and purpose-driven workforce.
Has Ojulari done well? Oh…he has. But he is politically naïve. Very naïve. He is not the head of one obscure government parastatal. He is heading the nation’s number one source of revenue: oil and gas. He needed to play the politics of that office. And one area of playing the politics of that office is that he should and must know that he cannot be doing business with just anyone. For political reasons, there are those he cannot do business with no matter how genuine his intensions are. There is patriotism. There is accountability. But there is also commonsense.
There is need to apply this going forward. Bashir Bayo Ojulari means well. But he is no longer in Shell. But now in NNPC-L, a strategic but enviable position which also has its banana peel. Bashir Bayo Ojulari is now a politically exposed person. But even at that, the nation needs brains like his in times like this. He should be retained.
• Ojo, an NNPC-L insider, wrote from Lagos.
