Blue Economy
PENGASSAN vs. Tinubu’s Oil Revenue Order: Reform Resistance or Legitimate Concern?
The oil workers’ union wants the president to reverse a landmark order that strips NNPC of its power to collect and deduct Nigeria’s oil money. But the numbers tell a damning story about why the order was necessary in the first place.
Bode Animashaun
When President Bola Tinubu signed his executive order on February 13, 2026, mandating that Nigeria’s oil revenues flow directly into the Federation Account rather than through the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, he did something few presidents had dared to do: he cut NNPC off at the money tap.
The reaction from the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) was swift and fierce. Its president, Festus Osifo, called the order a “direct attack” on the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) — the landmark 2021 law that restructured Nigeria’s oil sector and gave NNPC its current commercial mandate. He accused the presidency of being misled, warned of investor flight, and demanded the order be immediately recalled.
But before accepting PENGASSAN’s arguments at face value, it is worth asking: what, exactly, is being defended here?
What the Executive Order Actually Does
Under the PIA framework, NNPC retained 30 percent of the federation’s oil revenues as a management fee on profit oil and gas derived from production sharing, profit sharing, and risk service contracts. The company also retained another 30 percent of its profit oil and gas as the Frontier Exploration Fund, and an additional 20 percent of its profits for working capital and future investments.
In other words, NNPC was simultaneously Nigeria’s national oil company, a commercial enterprise, and the entity collecting, deducting, and remitting the nation’s oil money — a structural arrangement ripe for opacity and abuse.
The executive order introduces immediate measures to curb leakages, enhance transparency, eliminate duplicative structures, and reposition NNPC strictly as a commercial enterprise while safeguarding the federation’s interests. Going forward, all royalties, taxes, profit oil, and profit gas from production sharing contracts must be paid directly into the Federation Account. NNPC’s management fee and Frontier Exploration Fund deductions are scrapped.
The presidency’s case is straightforward and backed by hard evidence: NNPC has been sitting on Nigeria’s money.
The Revenue Record PENGASSAN Wants You to Ignore
The track record of NNPC’s stewardship over federation revenues is not a matter of opinion — it is documented in audit reports, FAAC minutes, and World Bank assessments.
The World Bank accused NNPC of failing to fully remit oil revenues to the Federation Account, thereby undermining fiscal transparency and macroeconomic stability. The bank noted that while the company was corporatised in 2021 to operate as a commercial entity, it still retains monopolistic control over crude oil sales and foreign exchange inflows, leading to persistent gaps between reported earnings and actual remittances. More damaging still, even after the removal of petrol subsidies, the World Bank observed that NNPC remitted only about 50 per cent of the revenue gains, using the rest to offset past arrears. PIDS
The scale of the problem goes back further. An audit by Periscope Consulting, engaged by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, accused NNPC of withholding $42.37 billion in oil revenue from the Federation Account between 2011 and 2017. NNPC rejected the findings, but the persistent cycle of audits, counterclaims, and stalemates has weakened trust in the federation revenue system and eroded confidence among states that depend on oil proceeds for survival. PIDS
As recently as late 2025, the government quietly wrote off approximately $1.42 billion and N5.57 trillion in NNPC’s accumulated debts to the federation — essentially absorbing the losses and wiping the slate clean before this new order took effect. Officials argued that fiscal and structural arrangements introduced under the PIA had resulted in off-budget allocations and revenue deductions that diluted federal inflows, and that the action had become urgent due to declining oil and gas receipts despite improved production levels and relatively favourable global prices.
This is the context within which PENGASSAN’s outrage must be evaluated.
Does PENGASSAN’s Legal Argument Hold Water?
Osifo’s constitutional argument — that an executive order cannot override an Act of the National Assembly — is not without merit and deserves fair examination. The PIA is indeed a statute, and the sections he cites (8, 9, and 64) do establish NNPC’s operational and fiscal framework. Legal scholars will debate whether Tinubu’s order encroaches on those provisions.
However, the presidency’s counter-argument is equally grounded in law. The executive order is anchored on Section 44(3) of the Constitution, which vests ownership, control, and derivative rights in all minerals, mineral oils, and natural gas in Nigeria in the Government of the Federation. The directive seeks to restore the constitutional revenue entitlements of the federal, state, and local governments, which the government argues were effectively removed in 2021 by the PIA. In other words, Tinubu is not claiming that he can casually override legislation — he is asserting a constitutional supremacy argument: that the PIA, to the extent it diverted federation revenues away from the Federation Account, was itself constitutionally defective.
That is a substantive legal question that courts may eventually have to resolve. But it is not the frivolous overreach PENGASSAN portrays it to be.
PENGASSAN’s Consistency Problem
A closer look at PENGASSAN’s recent history of policy positions reveals a pattern that raises uncomfortable questions.
In September 2025 — just five months before this controversy — PENGASSAN and its sister union NUPENG jointly opposed the Federal Government’s proposed sale of Joint Venture equities in the upstream sector, warning that handing decisive control to private interests would weaken Nigeria’s sovereign ability to plan, stabilise supply, and respond to economic shocks. That is a legitimate concern about strategic asset divestiture and deserves to be taken seriously.
But in August 2025, Osifo himself warned that constant policy amendments — particularly to the PIA — were discouraging investors and that frequent changes to laws don’t aid stability. He is now using the same investor-confidence argument to oppose a reform that plugs revenue leakages. The irony is sharp: PENGASSAN previously warned against weakening NNPC through privatisation while now defending an NNPC structure that, by the World Bank’s own account, has been shortchanging the federation for years.
It is also worth noting that PENGASSAN eventually backed fuel subsidy removal under Tinubu — a reform far more disruptive to ordinary Nigerians than redirecting management fees to the Federation Account. The union’s selective militancy is conspicuous.
The Jobs Argument: Real or Rhetorical?
Osifo’s most emotive claim is that if the order is not reversed, “our members are in danger of being declared redundant because NNPC may not be able to meet its obligations.” This is a serious warning if true, but it needs scrutiny.
NNPC remitted N12.117 trillion to the federation between January and October 2025, and recorded N4.358 trillion in revenue and N502 billion in profit after tax. A company with those numbers — even after losing management fees and frontier fund deductions — is not on the verge of insolvency. The claim that stripping duplicative deductions will make NNPC unable to pay staff salaries conflates the company’s operating budget with its fee-collection function. These are not the same thing.
PENGASSAN also alleged that the executive order was introduced without broad consultation with key industry stakeholders, heightening concerns about transparency and regulatory certainty, with Osifo noting: “We were not adequately consulted. When policies of this magnitude are introduced without engagement, it creates uncertainty, and uncertainty is the enemy of investment.” That is a procedural complaint worth taking seriously — good policy process matters. But the absence of consultation does not make the policy wrong, especially when its underlying rationale is this strong.
Corruption Fighting Back, or Genuine Reform Anxiety?
The more difficult question is whether PENGASSAN’s pushback is, at its core, an institutional defence of the status quo under which NNPC has wielded enormous financial discretion — discretion that has not always translated into full remittances to the federation.
Nigeria’s oil unions have historically positioned themselves as guardians of the sector’s integrity. Sometimes that role has been genuinely patriotic. But an organisation that resists JV divestiture, opposes PIA amendments, warns against executive orders, and simultaneously insists that the entity responsible for years of documented revenue shortfalls must retain its deduction powers — that organisation owes Nigerians a cleaner accounting of whose interests it is actually serving.
The order forces a commercial transition by removing quasi-sovereign revenue privileges and pushing NNPC closer to operating as a true commercial oil company rather than a hybrid state revenue custodian. That is not an attack on the oil industry. That is what reform looks like.
PENGASSAN’s legal concerns about executive order limits deserve a hearing in court if it chooses to pursue them. But the moral case for keeping NNPC as both the collector and remitter of Nigeria’s oil wealth — given everything we now know about how that arrangement has worked in practice — is very difficult to make.
The Federation Account belongs to all Nigerians. For too long, it has been treated as NNPC’s first stop, not its last.
Oyetola Woos Turkish Investors for Fisheries Sector, Vows to Protect Artisanal Fishers
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Dr Adegboyega Oyetola, has thrown Nigeria’s fisheries sector open to Turkish investment, insisting that any fresh capital coming into the industry must strengthen and not sideline the millions of Nigerians who depend on artisanal fishing for a living.
Oyetola made the pledge while receiving a delegation from Turkish fisheries and aquaculture firm CRD Impex, led by the company’s General Manager for Fisheries, Cem Tarhan, at his Abuja office. He told the investors the Federal Government was ready to create an investment-friendly climate for credible local and foreign players willing to bring capital, technology and modern value-chain solutions to the sector, on condition that such investment remains inclusive.
“We welcome investors who can bring capital, technology, expertise and modern value-chain solutions to the sector. However, investment must be inclusive and sustainable. It must complement and empower our artisanal fish producers, not undermine their livelihoods,” the Minister said
He listed inadequate infrastructure, poor access to modern fishing technology, weak cold-chain systems, limited processing and storage capacity, and gaps in market access as the major constraints holding back the sector, framing each as an opening for targeted investment rather than a dead end.
The Turkish team, which included CRD Impex founder Hanefi Cardak and Tetra Underwater Services founder Ersun Buyukgoze, toured key fisheries and aquaculture points around the country to size up the terrain first-hand. Stops included the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal in Lagos, the Ozumba Mbadiwe Fish Market in Lekki, and the Esuk Nsidung Beach Market, a major waterfront seafood hub in Calabar, Cross River State.
The Ministry described the visit as part of a broader push to attract serious investment into Nigeria’s blue economy while keeping the welfare of artisanal fishers central to that growth.
Nigeria Watch
The Turkish courtesy call lands squarely in the pattern this desk has tracked all year: big-ticket investment pledges for Nigeria’s waterways, paired with familiar assurances that the small operator won’t be crowded out. The test, as always, is what happens after the photo-op.
Nigeria’s artisanal fishing communities occupy the same economic space as the informal boat operators represented by WABOTAN and ATBOWATON, river- and creek-dependent Nigerians whose livelihoods rise or fall on decisions made far from the waterfront. The infrastructure gaps Oyetola cited which include, weak cold-chain systems, poor storage and limited market access, all mirror the exact complaints this desk has documented from inland waterway operators for years but modernisation announced from Abuja rarely reache the jetties.
Turkish capital chasing Nigerian fisheries and aquaculture is a genuinely new thread, distinct from the Strait of Hormuz shipping story or the CVFF disbursement saga this desk has followed closely. But the underlying question is the same one that has defined Oyetola’s tenure at the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy: will “inclusive investment” translate into contracts, cooperative partnerships and cold-chain infrastructure that artisanal operators can actually use or will it, like so many blue-economy pledges before it, stall at the courtesy-visit stage?
Waterways News will be watching for the first concrete CRD Impex commitment — site, timeline, or local partnership — as the marker of whether this one is different.
NPERA, NPA Open Technical Talks on Handover of Inland Dry Port Functions
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
The Nigerian Ports Economic Regulatory Agency (NPERA) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) have begun formal engagement on transferring inland dry port oversight to NPERA, marking the start of what both agencies describe as a critical phase in operationalising Nigeria’s new port regulatory framework.
At a management-level meeting between the two agencies, officials focused on the technical groundwork for the handover, chiefly how to draw clear lines of responsibility and avoid duplication among the government bodies with a stake in inland dry port administration.
NPERA’s Director-General/CEO, Dr Akutah Pius, framed the transition as flowing directly from the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Dr Adegboyega Oyetola, whom he credited with steering the process toward the sector’s broader development. Akutah was emphatic that NPERA could not carry out the transfer alone, and said the buy-in of every relevant stakeholder agency would be needed to see it through.
He indicated that the Ministry would stay central to coordinating the process even as specific mandates move to the agencies best placed to execute them. Akutah also pointed to the Minister’s earlier interventions during the NPERA Bill’s passage through the National Assembly, which he said had defused inter-agency friction and set the stage for the cooperation now underway.
Describing the purpose of the meeting, Akutah said it was meant to formally kick off the transfer of inland dry port responsibilities to NPERA in fulfilment of its statutory role as economic regulator of the ports sector. He singled out Section 51 of the NPERA Act as a provision that now needs to be put into practical effect to keep the transition orderly and ensure stakeholder roles are properly aligned.
To manage the process going forward, the NPERA boss proposed setting up a joint committee drawing in NPERA, NPA, the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), and the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy. He argued that inland dry ports matter well beyond the coastline. They extend maritime sector benefits into Nigeria’s hinterland and reinforce the country’s trade and logistics chain.
Responding on behalf of NPA, Managing Director Dr Abubakar Dantsoho welcomed the move and pledged his agency’s full operational and technical backing throughout the transition. He said the process had started on the right footing, and that NPA would furnish updated data on the current state of inland dry ports to inform further discussions, expressing confidence that continued engagement would help the agencies meet their shared objectives.
NPA’s Executive Director, Engr. Lekan Badmus, also commended NPERA for setting the collaboration in motion, calling the meeting a solid first step toward a smooth integration. He noted the two agencies have now moved into the technical phase of the exercise, with close attention being paid to eliminating overlapping functions.
Closing the meeting, Akutah said the proposed joint committee would reconvene with the Minister to seek further guidance and agree on next steps to keep the transition on track.
Nigeria Watch
This meeting is the first visible test of whether the NPERA Act’s promise of a rationalised port regulatory architecture can survive contact with Nigeria’s crowded agency landscape. Section 51’s transfer of inland dry port functions to NPERA looks straightforward on paper; in practice, it touches NPA’s traditional port administration turf, NIWA’s inland waterways mandate, and the Ministry’s coordinating role all at once, precisely the kind of overlapping jurisdiction that has bedevilled reform efforts elsewhere in the sector, most visibly in the long-running NIWA-LASWA tussle that only the Supreme Court could settle.
The proposed joint committee of NPERA, NPA, NIWA, and the Ministry, is a sensible mechanism, but Waterways News readers who have followed the CVFF disbursement saga know that Nigerian maritime governance has no shortage of well-designed committees whose outputs never quite reach implementation. What will matter is whether Akutah’s “technical phase” produces a binding timeline, not another round of goodwill statements.
For inland dry port operators and the hinterland trade corridors that depend on them, the stakes are practical: unclear jurisdiction between NPA and NPERA has historically meant slower cargo evacuation, duplicated levies, and uncertainty for freight forwarders planning routes away from the congested Lagos ports. If this transition is handled well, it strengthens the case for dry ports as genuine pressure valves for Apapa and Tin Can. If it stalls in inter-agency turf negotiation, it becomes one more entry in the gap between policy pronouncement and delivery that this desk continues to track.
Worth watching: whether Minister Oyetola’s office sets an explicit deadline when the committee reconvenes, and whether NIWA, whose inland waterways mandate intersects with dry port hinterland connectivity, gets more than a seat at the table.
Two More Tankers Struck in Strait of Hormuz as Attack Count Hits Five in a Week
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
Two more tankers have been hit while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, leaving two seafarers with minor injuries and pushing the number of reported attacks or security incidents against commercial vessels in the waterway to at least five since 16 September.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said an inbound tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile on Monday. Two crew members sustained minor injuries, but the vessel stayed under its own power and continued to its next port, with no environmental impact reported.
Hours later, UKMTO issued a second alert after an outbound LPG tanker reported being struck by debris from unknown projectiles. All crew were reported safe and the vessel also continued its voyage. Authorities are investigating both incidents, and UKMTO has not attributed either attack to a specific actor.
The two strikes build on a Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) advisory covering three earlier attacks between 16 and 18 September, one of which saw a tanker’s hull breached by a projectile, sparking a fire. JMIC continues to rate the threat level in the strait as “severe,” citing a high likelihood of deliberate hostile action and pointing to a pattern of harassment by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — drone overflights, surveillance of merchant vessels and VHF hailing, alongside the direct attacks.
Traffic through the chokepoint remains sharply depressed. Only 17 commodity vessels were visibly transiting over the weekend, down from 37 the week before and against a pre-war daily average of roughly 125. That figure excludes vessels sailing with their AIS transponders switched off, and JMIC notes a persistent gap between visible and actual traffic.
Nigeria Watch
For Nigerian maritime stakeholders, the Hormuz crisis is no longer a distant Gulf story. It is a cost line. Every fresh escalation feeds directly into the war-risk insurance premiums and freight rates that Nigerian importers, refiners and shipping agents ultimately absorb, since global tanker and container capacity pulled off the Hormuz route tightens supply elsewhere and pushes rates up across long-haul trades, including those serving West African ports.
The renewed attacks also sharpen the stakes around Nigeria’s push for a stronger voice at the IMO Council table and its broader blue-economy diplomacy under Minister Adegboyega Oyetola. A sustained Gulf disruption is exactly the kind of systemic shock that tests whether Nigeria’s seat translates into influence over how global shipping risk, insurance and rerouting decisions are made, rather than Nigeria simply absorbing the downstream cost.
Locally, the episode is a reminder of the layered nature of “maritime security” as a policy word: the Deep Blue Project and Gulf of Guinea security architecture address piracy and armed robbery close to home, but Nigeria’s ports and shippers remain exposed to security failures thousands of kilometres away in the Gulf.
Waterways News will continue tracking how the Hormuz situation feeds into freight cost pressure at Nigerian ports and NIMASA’s public messaging on the issue.
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