“NEITI audit report probe suffers setback in Senate.” VANGUARD, August 4, 2026 The report by Henry Umoru also stated as follows: • As CBN, NDDC, NEITI, NUPRC shun committee’s summon. • You must appear on Thursday or we invoke our powers – SENATE. The news report, which most readers might have dismissed without much thought (if they read it at all), points to two of the cardinal reasons corruption has been institutionalized in public service. Presidents and State Governors constitute the prime accomplices of corrupt officials; perhaps because their own hands are seldom clean. It is very difficult for a man, knee deep in filth to undertake the clean up of the premises. That explains why Nigeria’s public sector stinks so much; it has acquired a well-deserved global reputation. THE MAJOR CAUSE – DISREGARD OF AUDIT QUERY “Fish rots from the head.” When was the last time you read that the President of Nigeria or the Governor of a State ordered a Minister or Commissioner to respond to an audit query? For that matter, when was the first time you heard or read of the President or Governor doing that? Probably never. Almost without exception, all our Presidents and Governors, past and present, after swearing to uphold the constitution and to enforce our laws, have abandoned, wholesale, the enforcement of one of those laws. Specifically, almost without exception, they have allowed Ministries, Departments and Agencies, under government, not only to ignore audit queries, but to disregard summons by committees of the legislative branch with absolute immunity. Nigeria is lagging way behind its manifest economic and development destiny because virtually every government – Federal, State and Local Government – is run, not only by unrepentant liars; but, as a den of robbers. “Every great enterprise starts off with enthusiasm for an exalted aim and ends up bugged down in petty politics.” Charles Peguy, 1873-1914 No Nigerian enterprise had started off with more enthusiasm than the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI. Established in 2004 by President Obasanjo but was ultimately legalized in 2007; when Obasanjo was already a lame duck President after failing in his ambition for the third term. That fact weakened its potency as an anti-corruption agency. Its fate rested in the hands of the Yar’Adua government; for which it was not top priority. The rise and decline of NEITI was very brief indeed. Since then, it has become one of thousands of federal agencies, annually funded with billions of naira; but, certainly, not value for money. In fact, NEITI has achieved next to nothing. Its mandates included: to conduct regular independent audits of financial flows between extractive companies and governments; disclose revenue receipts openly to citizens, the President and the National Assembly and to monitor revenue deployment to prevent corruption and foster good governance in natural resource use. With those lofty goals, it was expected that corruption in government would be permanently checked. The government which established it was the first to render it effective – a paper guard dog. A fter a slow start on account of funding and the need to iron out issues involving duplication of roles with the Auditor General’s Office, NEITI took off like a rocket. But, its first report soon met with stiff resistance in the National Assembly, NASS, and by the powerful organizations it was established to monitor. NEITI was essentially a whistle-blower agency with no powers to sanction erring government establishments. It can bark; but, it can’t bite. Its reports must be submitted to the relevant committee in the NASS for action. Invariably, there was none. Nigeria’s lawmakers working with Presidents, from Yar’Adua to Tinubu have distanced themselves from controlling corruption, Everybody with access to loot, and conscienceless, has taken advantage. NEITI eventually got tired of reporting, particularly during the Buhari years. Under Buhari, corruption had its golden years. Nothing was sanctioned; NEITI reports were totally ignored. The organisation had become a victim of petty politics. Nobody in the Executive and legislative branch wants to expose the Minister, the Director General of an MDA appointed by their President; especially when the Presidency and NASS were also implicated in some of the reports. Nigeria paid dearly for it. Trillions of naira vanished without trace; so did millions of barrels of crude oil and tones of solid minerals. THE PRESENT CASE AND WHAT IT PORTENDS “The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC, have shunned Senate’s invitation to defend issues arising from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, Oil and Gas Industry Audit Reports covering 2021, 2022 and 2023.” In other words, the Senate NASS Commi
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