NNPCL: Court Temporarily Freezes Mele Kyari’s Bank Accounts Over Fraud Allegations

The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the temporary freezing of four Jaiz Bank accounts linked to the former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, over allegations of fraud and money laundering. 

The presiding judge, Justice Emeka Nwite, granted the order after counsel for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ogechi Ujam, moved an ex parte motion on August 11 2025, urging the court to freeze the accounts until the EFCC has concluded its investigations. The matter was then adjourned for September 23 for a report on the EFCC’s investigation. 

In an affidavit attached to the ex parte, Amin Abdullahi, a member of the EFCC’s investigative team assigned to probe the accounts, stated that the preliminary investigations carried out by the anti-graft agency discovered that Kyari had two accounts bearing his name and two others with the name of a non-governmental organisation, Guwori Community Development Foundation Flood Relief. The anti-graft agency asserted that the bank accounts for which the reliefs were sought were imperative for the Commission to establish misappropriation of funds and criminal breach of trust.

Amin Abdullahi also disclosed that the preliminary investigations carried out revealed that Kyari had been using the bank accounts to receive questionable inflows from NNPCL, various oil companies that have dealings with NNPCL and “warehoused” proceeds from illegal activities,  culminating in a total of N661,464,601.50. Abdullahi revealed that the suspicious transactions in the various accounts were masked as payments for an alleged book launch and activities of a non-governmental organisation.  

Abdullahi also noted that the accounts were supervised by Kyari’s family, who were acting as proxies. He mentioned that the anti-graft agency had written to Jaiz Bank to freeze the accounts for 72 hours, and is still awaiting a response from the bank. The Commission issued a “no-debit” instruction ahead of the court’s order, reiterating the need to preserve the details of the accounts. 

Mele Kyari, who is currently being investigated in a case involving the offences of conspiracy, abuse of office and money laundering, was removed from his position as the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the NNPCL, a position he held from 2019 until February 2025, after a major shake-up by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Kyari’s legacy as the GMD has been fraught with allegations of corruption and mismanagement, including claims of shady dealings in pipeline surveillance contracts and the fuel subsidy scheme. 

The investigation into Kyari comes amid an inquiry ordered by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts in July 2025, over the alleged unaccounted N210 trillion in NNPCL’s audited financial statements between 2017 and 2023. The Senate had requested in July that the current GMD of NNPCL, Bayo Ojulari, appear before the committee to explain the discrepancies in the company’s audit reports. After several failed invitations, Ojulari finally appeared before the committee and requested sufficient time to scrutinise the financial reports, to which the committee obliged by giving him three weeks to respond. 

As the findings from the investigations are yet to be released, they may deepen the already waning trust Nigerians have in the state-owned oil company, most especially after the failed attempt at rehabilitating Nigeria’s refineries.