Africa-Press – Nigeria. An energy expert and petroleum economist, Prof Emeritus Wumi Iledare, has reacted to calls by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to withdraw the Executive Order directing the direct remittance of oil and gas revenues to the Federation Account.
Recall that Festus Osifo made the call on Thursday, noting that Tinubu’s EO would put over 4,000 jobs in serious jeopardy.
Part of Tinubu’s EO particularly stripped the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.) of two streams of income: the 30 percent management fee on Profit Oil and Profit Gas, and the separate 30 percent Frontier Exploration Fund drawn from profit oil and gas revenues, which the company will no longer manage.
However, oil workers under PENGASSAN insisted that President Tinubu should immediately withdraw the EO.
Reacting in a statement on Friday, Prof. Iledare said the union is directing its advocacy in the wrong direction.
He noted that, “fighting peripheral battles may generate headlines, but it does not resolve structural bottlenecks.”
According to him, the union should instead confront the selective implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in the country.
Prof. Iledare stated that if there must be protests, they should focus on institutional functionality, such as the absence of fully empowered and independent boards for downstream and upstream oil and gas regulators, governance gaps that weaken regulatory credibility, and other structural issues.
“In my view, PENGASSAN may be directing its advocacy toward the wrong battleground.
“The deeper structural concern is not symbolic confrontation but creeping authoritarian tendencies and, more critically, the selective implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). The effectiveness of the PIA is being constrained not necessarily by its design alone, but by how unevenly and inconsistently it is being operationalized. If there must be protest or advocacy, it should focus on institutional functionality: the absence of fully empowered and independent boards for the Commission and the Authority; governance gaps that weaken regulatory credibility; the lack of a coherent anchor or coordinating leadership to drive sector-wide alignment; and institutional sequencing challenges that undermine investor confidence and policy stability.
“Sustainable reform in Nigeria’s petroleum sector will come from strengthening institutions, ensuring predictable rule-based governance, and enforcing the PIA in both letter and spirit.
“Anything else risks expending energy on battles that cannot be won while the foundational issues remain unaddressed,” he said.
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