The Senate Committee on Public Accounts, chaired by Senator Aliyu Wadada, has issued threats of sanctions against the external auditors of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) following their failure to honor a summons on Tuesday.

The auditors were summoned to address serious financial concerns regarding the national oil company but neither appeared nor provided reasons for their absence. The committee's investigation comes amid allegations of N80 billion found in a sacked NNPCL Director's account and an ongoing probe into the immediate past management led by former Group Managing Director Mele Kyari involving $2.96 billion.

Senator Wadada expressed displeasure at the press conference, warning that it was unacceptable for the committee's invitation to be disregarded. He emphasized that the committee possesses constitutional authority to invoke appropriate sanctions as provided in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).

"We found him not fit and proper as of today to stand before us as a representative of the external auditing firms," Wadada stated, referring to a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) who appeared claiming to represent the auditors. The committee rejected this arrangement, insisting that only the actual auditors who prepared the reports were qualified to provide clarifications on the contentious issues in NNPCL's annual and financial statements.

The committee identified the four external auditing firms involved as SIAO, VWC, Muktali Dangana & Co, and Ahmed Zakaria & Co. These firms are expected to appear individually to respond to specific queries raised during the examination of NNPCL's 2023 accounts.

The Public Accounts Committee is investigating NNPCL's financial transactions from 2017 to 2023, with reports already submitted to the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation. The tension in the committee room escalated when none of the invited auditing firms appeared despite formal invitations to address what lawmakers described as "contentious issues" in the company's financial statements.

This development comes as part of broader scrutiny of Nigeria's oil sector, with the Senate increasingly assertive in its oversight functions regarding the operations and financial management of the NNPCL.