● How Ojulari’s private life became entangled with allegations over Nigeria’s petroleum assets
● NNPCL boss under fire as allegations of favouritism trail his official, private life
● Oil professionals accuse his leadership of insider influence in marginal-field awards
● Corporation says it has no power to allocate oil blocks, while Ojulari’s associates reject attempts to link his family life to controversy
There are two different arguments now travelling together around Bashir Bayo Ojulari, and they ought to be separated.
One concerns oil blocks, the licensing process and allegations that people close to the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) benefited from the latest marginal-field awards.
The other concerns his private life: the fact that Ojulari has multiple wives.
Somehow, the two have become entangled in public discussion, as though the number of women to whom a man is married were itself evidence of wrongdoing.
It is a curious development in a controversy that should ordinarily be settled by documents, rules, eligibility and the integrity of the process by which petroleum assets are allocated.
Ojulari’s defenders are particularly irritated by that conflation.
They argue that he had multiple wives long before he became GCEO of NNPCL and that his family arrangements therefore cannot reasonably be presented as a consequence of the office he currently occupies.
They point to his long career at Shell Petroleum Development Company and insist that he had been supporting his family and meeting his obligations well before his appointment to the national oil company.
Notwithstanding, the controversy surrounding Ojulari and his multiple wives has acquired an unusual second life.
What began as a dispute over oil blocks, the recently concluded marginal-field licensing round and allegations of insider influence. Then the conversation widened. Suddenly, the number of wives the NNPCL chief has became part of the public argument.
Ojulari has multiple wives and for some of his critics, that fact has been folded into the broader portrait being drawn around him.
For people close to him, the development is baffling. They say his marriages predate his appointment to NNPCL by many years and have no bearing on whether a petroleum asset was properly awarded.
The distinction matters because the allegation at the centre of the controversy is a serious one: that people close to Ojulari, including one of his wives, benefited from the latest oil-block awards through insider influence.
The Oil & Gas Professionals Forum (OGPF), which made the allegation, has called for the removal of Ojulari and Meyiwa Eyesan, Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), accusing the two institutions of failing to deliver the performance and accountability expected of them.
NNPCL has rejected the suggestion that it possesses the authority to allocate the disputed oil blocks.
Under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, the company said, the conduct of licensing rounds and allocation of oil blocks fall within the statutory mandate of NUPRC. NNPCL, it stressed, has operated as a commercial entity since its incorporation and holds no regulatory or allocative authority.
That response, however, has not ended the argument as the OGPF says the corporation answered a question different from the one it raised.
And so the dispute has continued, moving between the formal narrative of petroleum regulation and the more personal territory of family, friendship and influence.
The latest confrontation followed the conclusion of a licensing round conducted by NUPRC, in which 31 companies emerged as winners from 37 available oil blocks.
OGPF subsequently called for the removal of Ojulari and Eyesan, citing what it described as continued underperformance in the oil sector, questionable transactions and contracts, and controversies surrounding the award of oil blocks.
Its most pointed allegation concerned the relationship between some beneficiaries and the NNPCL leadership.
The forum alleged that Ojulari’s cronies and friends, including one of his wives, secured favourable oil blocks through insider influence.
That allegation has not been independently established.
OGPF, however, has maintained that the relationships surrounding the bid process warrant scrutiny.
Its convener, Ayodele Momoh, said the NNPCL response was “misleading, diversionary, and largely unresponsive to the core issues.”
According to the forum, the corporation failed to directly address questions surrounding alleged conflicts of interest, the identity of bid beneficiaries and the conduct of the current NNPCL leadership.
The forum further alleged that a wife of Ojulari played a significant role in the bid evaluation process and that at least two beneficiaries of the marginal-field awards were close allies of the NNPCL chief.
Those assertions are at the heart of the controversy.
They also provide the point at which the private and public lives of the NNPCL chief have collided.
Back to the multiple-wife question
People close to Ojulari say the attention paid to his marital life is misplaced.
They argue that his many wives were part of his life long before he occupied the NNPCL position. His career at Shell, they point out, preceded his appointment to lead the national oil company, and his family obligations were already well established by then.
Those familiar with his private circumstances say he had been responsible for his household and had supported his wives comfortably before entering public office.
They also maintain that he had helped establish them in their respective fields and that each had become financially and professionally independent before his elevation to the NNPCL leadership.
That account is important to the defence being mounted around him.
The argument is that his marital arrangements cannot reasonably be presented as evidence of abuse of office simply because one of his wives has subsequently been mentioned in an oil-block controversy.
The fact that Ojulari has many wives, his defenders insist, is a matter of private life.
Whether any of those wives benefited improperly from a public process is a separate question.
The two issues, they say, should not be allowed to contaminate each other.
There is also a more fundamental point: Having many wives does not, by itself, establish misconduct.
Neither does being married to a public official automatically prevent a spouse from participating in legitimate commercial activity.
The relevant test is the process. Thus, if a spouse or relative of a public official participates in a competitive process, the important questions are whether the person was eligible, whether the process was properly conducted, whether the official disclosed any potential conflict and whether the official improperly influenced the outcome.
Ojulari’s associates have therefore urged critics to separate the man from the allegations being made about his office.
They point to his long career in the oil industry and his years at Shell, stressing that he had already built his professional reputation and financial capacity before becoming NNPCL GCEO.
His family, they argue, was neither created nor maintained by the privileges of his current office.
That is why, they say, attempts to make his wives part of the scandal are unfair.
They also make another argument that even if one of his wives had received an oil block, they contend, the mere fact of the marital relationship would not establish wrongdoing. The decisive question would be whether she merited the award and whether the award was made according to the applicable rules.
That position places the emphasis where a licensing controversy ought to place it on eligibility and process.
It also exposes the weakness of a purely personal attack as a person’s private family arrangement cannot establish whether a petroleum asset was improperly allocated.
If the wife was qualified and successfully competed under a transparent process, her marriage to Ojulari would not, on its own, invalidate the award.
If she was unqualified, or if the process was manipulated in her favour, the relationship would become highly relevant.
The burden therefore falls on the evidence.
For Ojulari’s defenders, the most troubling aspect of the controversy is the extent to which his private life has entered a debate about petroleum governance.
They argue that his wives have become convenient characters in a controversy whose real subject should be the integrity of an oil-block licensing process.
The multiple wives issue, they say, should be left where it began: in his private life.
Ojulari did not acquire all his wives after becoming NNPCL GCEO, they stress. His family existed before his present office, and so did his financial responsibilities towards them.
NNPCL’s response
NNPCL’s response has centred on institutional responsibility.
Its spokesperson, Andy Odeh, said the company had no authority to conduct the licensing round or allocate the oil blocks.
The PIA, according to the corporation, places those responsibilities with NUPRC.
“NNPC Limited, since its incorporation, has operated strictly as a commercial entity and holds no regulatory or allocative authority,” the company said.
That position was offered as a response to the accusation that NNPCL leadership had influenced the award of the blocks.
NNPCL has also defended Ojulari by pointing to production figures.
The company said crude-oil production rose by six per cent to 1.67 million barrels per day, including condensate, in April 2026, from 1.60 million barrels per day in 2025.
It described the increase of approximately 80,000 barrels per day as evidence of progress.
NNPCL also reported changes in gas production and has continued to present its operational performance as part of the case for the direction being taken under Ojulari.
But OGPF rejected that defence arguing that production statistics did not answer questions about governance and accountability.
It said that if the stated ambition was to raise production to three million barrels per day within two years, an increase of approximately 80,000 barrels per day should be measured against that target rather than presented as grounds for celebration.
The forum described the reported growth as inadequate and argued that NNPCL should focus on closing the gap between its current production and its stated ambition.
Behind the debate is an older Nigerian question: how close is too close when public office meets private business?
There is no gainsaying that the country’s petroleum resources are public assets. Therefore, their allocation attracts enormous financial consequences, and any suggestion that relatives, friends or associates of powerful officials may have received preferential access naturally attracts scrutiny.
A relationship between an official and a beneficiary may raise a question, but it does not, by itself, answer the question.
