Senate Threatens Mele Kyari with Arrest; Demands Former NNPCL Bosses Account for ‘Missing’ Billions and ₦5bn Name-Change Bill

The hunt for accountability in Nigeria’s oil sector has reached a fever pitch. On Thursday, March 5, 2026, the Senate Committee on Public Accounts officially summoned the “Old Guard” of the NNPCL including former Group CEO Mele Kyari to explain a mind-boggling ₦210 trillion gap in the company’s financial records.

Senator Aliyu Wadada, the committee chairman, didn’t mince words during a briefing in Abuja, warning that the “State of Harmony” between the legislature and the oil giant is over. “NNPCL should and must account for these figures,” Wadada declared. The committee is demanding answers for ₦103 trillion in unexplained expenses and another ₦107 trillion in “receivables” that the company claims are stuck in unnamed, defunct banks.

The probe also took a sharp turn into the “absurd,” with lawmakers questioning why the company spent ₦5 billion just to add the word “Limited” to its name during its transition from a corporation. “This is unacceptable,” the committee noted, pointing out that such a sum could have funded critical national infrastructure instead of stationary and rebranding.

With the Senate now calling for a full forensic audit by the Auditor-General, the pressure is on the former management team to show their faces. Mele Kyari, Umar Ajia Isa, and Bala Wunti have been told to appear in person or face a mandatory arrest warrant. As the 10th Senate moves to “peel back the layers” of what some members are calling a “monumental accounting fraud,” the nation waits to see if the oil trillions will finally be traced or if they have vanished into the “black hole” of NNPCL’s historical books.