Former Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has condemned Nigeria’s worsening corruption crisis, describing the country as a “crime scene” following the Senate’s revelation of alleged ₦210 trillion in financial irregularities within the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) from 2017 to 2023.
He said the findings also include ₦103 trillion in so-called “accrued expenses” and ₦107 trillion in undocumented “receivables,” all of which, Obi said, occurred without proper documentation, accountability, or consequences.
The 63-year-old argued that the alleged discrepancies far exceeded Nigeria’s total national budgets for the period, which amounted to ₦88.01 trillion—₦7.44 trillion in 2017, ₦9.12 trillion in 2018, ₦8.92 trillion in 2019, ₦9.97 trillion (revised due to COVID-19) in 2020, ₦13.59 trillion in 2021, ₦17.13 trillion in 2022, and ₦21.83 trillion in 2023.
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He emphasised that the financial mismanagement amounted to a criminal betrayal of the Nigerian people and a grave threat to future generations.
He insisted that no responsible nation could survive such levels of institutionalised corruption without confronting the truth.
Obi stressed that the ongoing “criminality masquerading as governance” must be urgently dismantled in order to build a better and more accountable Nigeria.
