On Tuesday, Vice-President Kashim Shettima had a message for NNPC's chief executive. He told Bayo Ojulari, "you will overwhelm us the way Dangote did."

He was speaking in Abuja at the fifth anniversary of NUPRC, the upstream regulator. He said he'd learnt NNPC was going to the stock market very soon.

Ojulari had sounded less sure a week earlier. 29 September. No date for the share sale, he told reporters. A date, he said, depends on "transparency, clear accountability and sustainable performance."

The decision isn't management's, he said. It's the shareholders', on behalf of the country. NNPC had also finished the first phase of a review looking for gaps against listing requirements. The listing would cover the whole company, not just the refineries, he said. And he tied it to collecting what NNPC is owed.

Shettima made the investment case too. Oil blocks now go through open, competitive bidding, he said. Reforms could unlock up to $50 billion in deep-offshore money, starting with Bonga South-West.

NUPRC's chief executive, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, had a number. Nigeria took 38 per cent of upstream capital sanctioned in Africa in 2025. In 2021, it was 4 per cent.

So who's checking the books? The Senate public accounts committee, chaired by Ibrahim Dankwambo. It's working through audits of the oil and gas sector for 2021, 2022 and 2023. They're by NEITI, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

TheCable reports more than 50 institutions were invited. Some didn't come. The committee's reply? Ultimatums. 72 hours, then 48.

What are the questions? Big ones. NEITI says $722.6 million that Nigeria LNG paid NNPC in 2021, as dividends and interest earned for the federation, was neither remitted to the Federation Account nor properly accounted for.

None of Nigeria's refineries was running in 2021, it says, after about ₦200 billion went on rehabilitating them. There's $221.283 million in overhead costs at the National Petroleum Investment Management Services, NAPIMS. And a $3 billion loan from 2012, taken to settle subsidy payments. NEITI says the repayment trail remains unclear.

These are 2021 queries. Nothing in the reports cited says they describe NNPC's books today. NNPC has since published audited results for 2025. Even so, on 13 August senators were still asking, and the Finance Ministry told them it couldn't yet answer.

What does an investor face? Kelvin Emmanuel, an energy consultant, told TheCable that Nigeria has no end-to-end metering of the oil value chain. No hydrocarbon accounting framework either. He said that could complicate how investment bankers value NNPC as it heads to the capital market.

Not for the first time. In 2025 the same committee, under a different chairman, gave NNPC ten working days to answer queries. It said they involved ₦210 trillion in discrepancies in audited statements for 2017 to 2023.

By October 2025, NNPC had answered 19 queries in writing. On 11 November the committee rejected the explanationsand said the chief executive must appear in person. In April 2026 it was still pressing, with another deadline. Where it stands now isn't in the reports cited.

If NNPC lists, investors will be buying into its accounts. Have the 2021 queries closed since? The reports reviewed don't establish it. On 13 August, the Senate was still seeking answers.