NNPC, NUPRC Remit N322bn to Federation Account as Tinubu’s Executive Order Bites

Executive Order 9 Forces Oil Revenue Into National Coffers

Two months after President Bola Tinubu signed Executive Order 9 in February 2026, the results are visible in the numbers. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) have together remitted over N322 billion and $116.9 million into the Federation Account — money that, under the old system, would have been quietly absorbed before reaching the shared pot.

Documents presented at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meetings in March and April show the scale of the change. For February 2026, NNPC remitted $87.63 million and N121.34 billion. For March, the figures were $29.28 million and N42.64 billion. NUPRC added N34.2 billion in March from royalties, gas flare penalties, and concession rentals.

What Changed — and Why It Matters

Executive Order 9 ended a long-standing practice where NNPC deducted 30 percent for the Frontier Exploration Fund and another 30 percent in management fees before any remittance to the Federation Account. Tinubu’s directive required 100 percent of crude oil and gas receipts to go straight into national coffers first.

“For too long, excessive deductions, overlapping funds, and structural distortions in the oil and gas sector have weakened remittances to the Federation Account,” Tinubu said on his official X account. “When revenues meant for federal, state, and local governments are trapped in layers of charges and retention mechanisms, development suffers.”

BusinessDay reported that NNPC’s remittances to FAAC rose by 60 percent in March — from N1.80 trillion in February to N2.88 trillion — driven by the new remittance framework. An Afrinvest analyst also noted that rising oil prices, pushed higher by US-Iran tensions, provided an additional windfall of at least $20 per barrel beyond baseline expectations.

NNPC Profit Also Jumps

Beyond raw remittances, NNPC’s profit after tax surged over 100 percent to N276 billion in March 2026, according to the FAAC documents reviewed by Punch. The company’s presentation at the April FAAC meeting confirmed that all revenue streams — including Production Sharing Contract profits, crude exports, domestic sales to the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, and gas receipts — were now fully transferred in line with the executive order.

The World Bank, in its latest Nigeria Development Update, acknowledged the progress but pressed for tighter enforcement, urging the government to fully eliminate deductions at source and move government agencies onto budgetary funding arrangements.

For Nigeria’s 36 states and 774 local governments, every naira that now flows through FAAC rather than sitting in opaque NNPC accounts matters. Many are running on thin margins, facing rising debt obligations and infrastructure backlogs. The executive order, at least so far, is delivering more money to the table.

Sources: Punch, BusinessDay