The House of Representatives has begun a major investigation into alleged leakages in Nigeria’s crude oil export earnings, following revelations that more than 850 billion dollars may not have been repatriated into the country between 1996 and 2014. The probe, led by the House Ad-Hoc Committee on Pre-Shipment Inspection, aims to establish the scale of non-compliance by oil exporters and identify the gaps that allowed such massive losses.

Chairman of the committee, Rep. Seyi Sowunmi, explained that preliminary findings suggest that between 40 and 45 percent of export proceeds were not returned to Nigeria as required by law. The committee is now carrying out a forensic reconciliation of export data across key institutions, including the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the National Bureau of Statistics.

Lawmakers say the investigation will also assess the efficiency of the Nigerian Export Supervision Scheme and recommend reforms to strengthen monitoring and enforcement. This includes adopting digital tracking tools to capture every barrel exported, enforcing stricter penalties for infractions and tightening loopholes across the oil and non-oil export value chains, all aimed at safeguarding national revenue and improving economic stability.