The NNPC board, chaired by Ahmadu Musa Kida and managed by Ojulari, lodged at the upscale Kigali Marriott Hotel, where the company reportedly booked the entire facility.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, under the leadership of its Group Chief Executive Officer, Bashir Ojulari, has chartered private jets for a trip to Brazil, SaharaReporters has learned.
Details of the Brazil mission remain unclear, but it comes barely two months after SaharaReporters exclusively exposed how the NNPC Board flew to Kigali, Rwanda, for a lavish retreat, just days after the Nigerian Senate raised concerns about the company's audited financial accounts.
"Just two months after the extravagant Kigali retreat, NNPC management boss has chartered private jets to a trip to Brazil," a top source said.
Sources confirmed that at least five private jets were arranged to convey board members and top management to Kigali. The trip, they said, was coordinated by Abdullahi Bashir-Haske, founder of AA & R Investment Group and son-in-law to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
The NNPC board, chaired by Ahmadu Musa Kida and managed by Ojulari, lodged at the upscale Kigali Marriott Hotel, where the company reportedly booked the entire facility.
Room rates at the hotel range from $173 per night for standard suites to nearly $3,800 for luxury accommodations, with an average of $320 per night.
According to multiple insiders, four of the five jets used for the Kigali retreat were provided by Bashir-Haske, a businessman with longstanding ties to Nigeria's political elite and energy sector deals.
Bashir-Haske was declared wanted for alleged criminal conspiracy and money laundering.
His company, AA & R Investment Group, has previously been linked to oil bloc allocations. When contacted, he neither answered calls nor offered any comment.
However, SaharaReporters was later contacted by an intermediary, who denied that Bashir-Haske was involved in arranging the jets and appealed that the story not be published. Asked why Bashir-Haske would not speak directly, the caller said he was not willing to engage with SaharaReporters.
Critics have long accused NNPC of being bloated, corrupt, and ineffective, despite its central role in Nigeria's economy.
On Friday, SaharaReporters reported that President Bola Tinubu had arrived at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in California, USA, en route to Brazil.
SaharaReporters learned that the Nigerian presidential jet, Air Force One (NAF-001), registered as 5N-FGA and identified by the call sign Eagle One during official flights, landed at LAX on Friday.
According to the State House, Tinubu is scheduled to visit Brazil from Sunday, August 24, to Monday, August 25, at the invitation of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. While in Brazil, he is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with his host and attend a business forum with Brazilian investors.
The President had departed Abuja on Thursday, August 14, for a working trip covering Japan and Brazil, with a stopover in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
In Japan, he participated in the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD9) held in Yokohama from August 20 to 22.
In June, the Nigerian Senate asked NNPC to account for financial discrepancies amounting to over ₦210 trillion in its audited statements covering the years 2017 to 2023.
The directive was handed down during a session of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, where NNPCL's Chief Financial Officer, Dapo Segun, appeared alongside other senior executives to answer queries.
Lawmakers reacted with shock, describing the discrepancies, particularly in the areas of accrued expenses and receivables, as "mind-boggling" and deeply troubling.
Committee Chairman Senator Aliyu Wadada condemned the irregularities as "unacceptable," vowing that the Senate would invoke the full weight of its oversight authority to ensure accountability.
The panel said, "Legal fees were accrued without any explanation or documentation regarding the legal services rendered. The auditors' fees raise similar questions. There are no clear justifications. Everything we've seen and heard from the audited financial statements is troubling."
"Trillions of naira are in question, and the new document they presented this afternoon doesn't match what's already in their audited report. It's completely independent and contradictory," Wadada said.
"We are looking at over ₦210 trillion in just two categories -- accrued expenses and receivables. These are not mere rounding errors; they raise fundamental questions about transparency and financial integrity."
The Senate raised serious concerns over the audited reports, which revealed ₦103 trillion in accrued expenses. This included ₦600 billion marked as retention fees, along with vague legal fees and auditor charges -- none of which were supported by documentation or contractual references.
Further raising suspicions, the committee pointed to another ₦103 trillion listed under receivables. Just before the hearing, NNPCL submitted a revised document that directly contradicted figures in the publicly released audit, prompting criticism over the reliability and transparency of the financial disclosures.
The senator voiced concern that NNPCL proceeded to release and approve the audited financial statements despite ongoing internal reconciliation processes.
He cautioned that such premature actions could damage Nigeria's credibility in the global financial arena, particularly as the company prepares for its anticipated Initial Public Offering (IPO).
"How do you proceed to finalise audited accounts while still reconciling such massive figures?" he asked.
In a revelation that heightened concerns, the Senate uncovered that between 2017 and 2021, the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) -- a major subsidiary of NNPCL -- declared profits totalling ₦9 trillion, even as the parent company, NNPCL, recorded a loss of ₦16 billion over the same period.
"How can a subsidiary report trillions in profit while the parent company bleeds losses?" Wadada asked. "That math doesn't add up."