*Akinosho’s Regular Faulty View and A Regulator’s Achievements*

By Bukola Olasanmi

On the surface, the piece published in the online and PDF editions of the Africa Oil+Gas Report on 24 November 2025 under the title “The irregularities of the regulator will keep Nigeria’s upstream underachieving” wears the respectable garb of a professional intervention designed to stimulate debate and provoke corrective action.

A closer, honest reading instantly betrays the personal grievance of the publisher, Toyin Akinosho, who has cynically disguised his private shopping list as an “editorial.” The deliberate distortion of facts, the selective deployment of half-truths, and the insertion of outright falsehoods disgrace the very idea of an editorial—an exercise that is meant to be impartial, disinterested, and committed solely to the public good. For the remainder of this rebuttal, therefore, the article will be correctly described as Akinosho’s opinion piece, not as any official editorial of the Africa Oil+Gas Report.

To dignify it with the label “editorial” would be an insult to every serious publication that has ever taken a principled stand on issues of national importance. In that single article, Akinosho has managed to commit what amounts to journalistic fraud in print. Were he still resident in Nigeria rather than safely ensconced abroad where he now peddles his wares, a strong case could be made for charging him with criminal defamation and cyber-stalking.

By rushing into print, he has implicated himself beyond rescue. Had he kept his resentments private, some people might still have mistaken his silence for wisdom. Instead, he has chosen to advertise the hollowness of the “decades of experience” he so loudly trumpets—experience that now stands exposed as little more than recycled gossip, hot air, and copy-paste plagiarism from the NUPRC website and social-media handles.

One would not be surprised if, cornered by the collapse of his latest stunt, he resurrects his decade-old trick of claiming “assassination attempts” in order to cloak his fabrications in a martyr’s robe. His only plausible plea at this point is ignorance; everything else—malice, envy, and mercenary interest—is already on full display.

Akinosho’s tirade against the NUPRC (and by extension its leadership) conveniently omits the elementary truth that attracting investment into any sector is never the responsibility of a single regulator acting in isolation. Global capital flows are shaped by security, fiscal policy, judicial certainty, infrastructure, and a dozen other variables. A responsible analyst would at least have acknowledged the devastating impact of Nigeria’s lingering insecurity on investor confidence.

Instead, Akinosho remained silent on the subject, preferring to train his guns exclusively on the Commission while pretending the broader context does not exist. Yet even within this hostile operating environment, the NUPRC under Engr. Gbenga Komolafe has delivered results that no honest observer can dismiss as modest.

The aggressive roll-out of improved metering infrastructure has driven crude-oil theft and losses to a 16-year low by mid-2025. The 2024–2025 divestment programmes and licensing rounds have been widely praised for transparency and competitiveness. The Project One Million Barrels incremental initiative has already added approximately 250,000 barrels per day of sustainable production. These are verifiable, quantifiable achievements—facts that sit uncomfortably with Akinosho’s narrative of failure and therefore had to be ignored entirely.

The mask slips completely in the seventh paragraph, where he laments: “Hopes that NUPRC’s appointment earlier this year of a professional with business journalism experience and a track record of demanding transparency from powerful individuals and institutions as its head of communications would lead to predictable and timely release of data have been dashed.”
Translation: “They should have given the job to me. I have a geology degree, industry exposure, and I run a newsletter—never mind that my ‘journalism’ consists largely of lifting NUPRC press releases verbatim and selling them to foreign subscribers as proprietary analysis.

Fire the current spokesman and install me instead.” It is a naked, pathetic job application dressed up as public-interest commentary. One sincerely hopes that the Commission Chief Executive, Engr. Gbenga Komolafe, treats this tawdry piece of blackmail with the contempt it deserves. Intellectual laziness is the kindest explanation for such a shoddy, narrow-gauge outburst.

The days when Akinosho could simply harvest data from the NUPRC website, repackage it with minimal effort, and flog it abroad as “exclusive insight” are over. The Commission now releases timely, detailed, world-class data directly to the public—cutting out the parasitic middlemen who used to monetise information that was never theirs to sell. That is the real source of his rage: the tap has been turned off, and the easy money has dried up.

Let Toyin Akinosho understand this clearly: his attempt to denigrate an institution that has become a benchmark of competence and transparency in Nigeria’s public sector is doomed to fail—now and always.

What is truly galling is the shameless plagiarism that has sustained Akinosho’s “career” for years. Page after page of his paid reports, sometimes sold for thousands of dollars to unsuspecting international clients, are nothing more than lightly reworded copies of press releases, presentations, and social-media infographics. He adds a few adjectives, changes a headline, and pockets the money while contributing zero original research, zero fieldwork, and zero value.

Now that the Commission publishes everything in real time—with infographics, spreadsheets, and interactive dashboards—he has been reduced to a digital scavenger screaming because the free buffet has been replaced by an open, transparent cafeteria that no longer needs his waiter services.

The irony is delicious: a man who postures as the conscience of Nigerian upstream is in reality its most conspicuous freeloader. While genuine journalists and analysts burn shoe leather attending technical meetings, interviewing engineers, and crunching data, Akinosho sits abroad, copies, pastes, and cashes cheques. His entire brand—built on the borrowed credibility of other people’s work—is collapsing in real time, and the panic is palpable.

This November 2025 tantrum is not the cry of a wounded patriot; it is the death rattle of a hustler whose business model has been rendered obsolete by competence and openness. Finally, spare us the pretence of elder-statesman gravitas.

A man who has spent years dining out on the NUPRC’s intellectual property now has the effrontery to lecture the same institution on “irregularities” because it refused to hand him a salaried position he never applied for through proper channels. The sheer sense of entitlement would be comical if it were not so pathetic.

Toyin Akinosho is not a victim of regulatory failure; he is a casualty of his own laziness, greed, and the irreversible triumph of institutional excellence over parasitic pamphleteering. History will record him not as a chronicler of Nigeria’s oil industry, but as a cautionary tale of what happens when a mediocre middleman mistakes access for talent and plagiarism for journalism. The NUPRC has moved on. He never began.

***Olasanmi is a legislative writer with a focus in oil and gas

Is Nigeria Becoming A Failed State Under President Tinubu?

BY Gbenga Shaba

Nigeria is currently at one of the most troubling security crossroads in its history. The scale and frequency of violent attacks, mass abductions, territorial infiltration by bandits and terror groups, and the collapse of safety in many communities have raised serious questions about the capacity of the state to protect its citizens. When a government begins to lose the ability to secure lives, enforce law and order, and guarantee the safety of children in schools, the debate about state failure becomes unavoidable.

Across the northern region, the wave of kidnappings and attacks has forced governments to take drastic measures. Katsina State ordered the immediate closure of all government schools. Taraba State directed that all secondary schools should operate only as day schools. These decisions were not made out of convenience. They were made out of fear. They were made because students have become targets, and schools have become vulnerable grounds. Education, the foundation of national development, is now under threat.

In recent weeks, the scale of kidnappings has escalated sharply. In Niger State, 34 students and three teachers were abducted from a government secondary school. They spent several days in captivity, enduring harsh conditions with limited food and water. Negotiations for their release were tense, with parents and authorities working tirelessly to secure their safe return. In Kebbi State, more than 40 children and 10 staff members were abducted from a private academy. The victims described being blindfolded, bundled into vehicles, and transported through forested areas under armed guard. In several other incidents across Kaduna, Zamfara, and Katsina, hundreds of men, women, and children have been taken in separate attacks, some held for weeks before rescue or ransom payments were made.

As if that was not enough, just few hours ago, some residents of Isapa in Kwara were abducted. Pregnant women, nursing mothers and children were allegedly abducted.

The ordeal for these children and their families is traumatic. Parents live in constant fear of the next attack, and even when children are rescued, they often return home in shock and fear. Many students have developed anxiety about returning to school, and communities are traumatized, with the memories of abduction and violence lingering long after the victims are freed.

Even more worrying is the deepening culture of ransom payments. Reports indicate that over ₦1 billion has been paid to bandits in recent weeks alone. This alarming trend not only empowers criminal networks but also signals the state’s weakening control. When kidnappers see consistent payouts from the government or local authorities, it encourages further attacks, creating a vicious cycle of fear and extortion.

This raises a critical question: Is Nigeria drifting toward a failed state under the current administration?

A country moves toward failure when the government can no longer protect its citizens, secure its borders, enforce laws, provide essential services, and maintain public confidence. Judged by these indicators, Nigeria is showing many worrying signs. The strength of non-state armed groups is rising. Large parts of the country are becoming ungoverned spaces. Communities are living under constant fear. Schools are shutting down. Businesses are relocating. Farmers are abandoning their fields. Ordinary Nigerians no longer trust the state to safeguard their lives.

President Tinubu came into office with promises of firm action on security. Nearly two years later, the practical reality suggests that insecurity is expanding faster than the response to it. Despite efforts by the security agencies, violent groups remain active and resilient. The lives of citizens are increasingly threatened, and the confidence in government’s capacity to reverse the trend is weakening.

It is therefore understandable when analysts conclude that the government is failing in the area of security. Citizens like Deacon Olanrewaju have voiced what many Nigerians feel: children are now staying at home not because of a pandemic but because of fear. Communities are shutting down not because of a virus but because of terror. The country is experiencing a form of paralysis driven by violence and fear.

Just like COVID-19, insecurity is gradually locking Nigeria down.

During the COVID era, movement was restricted, economic activities were disrupted, and schools were forced to close. Today, Nigeria is witnessing the same pattern, but the cause is not a global disease. It is insecurity. Communities are avoiding travel. States are closing schools. Businesses are shrinking their operations. Citizens live indoors once the sun sets. The sense of national freedom is shrinking under the weight of fear.

Nigeria may not yet be officially classified as a failed state, but the signs are becoming too visible to ignore. Without urgent, intelligent, and coordinated action, the country risks sliding deeper into a security crisis that will be harder to reverse.

Just like Simon Kolawole recalls what President Bola Tinubu said years ago. I recall that on November 5, 2014, in Ilorin, Kwara State, at a rally organised by Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed to declare his second-term bid, the APC leaders spoke one after the other about insecurity in Nigeria. Among those in attendance were Gen Muhammadu Buhari, then a presidential aspirant, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, also an aspirant, Rt Hon Aminu Tambuwal, then speaker of the house of reps, and Alhaji Lai Mohammed, then the APC spokesman. Tinubu, who was the national leader of the party, said I saw the sea of refugees caused by the Boko Haram insurgents and the lies coming from Jonathan’s administration. They have exhibited failure, lack of capacity, vision and creativity.

He went further. The lies of yesterday are what they repeat today and are what they will repeat tomorrow. If you control the armed forces and you are the Commander-in-Chief, why should any part of this country be under occupation? And you give us excuses every day. In any civilised country, Jonathan should have resigned. But if he will not resign, he should wait for our broom. We will sweep him away.

They swept Jonathan away. But here we are, a decade later.

Tinubu is now the Commander-in-Chief, but Nigeria remains under siege. We could poke fun at the APC today and say they are only getting a dose of their own medicine. But it is human lives, the lives of Nigerians, that we are talking about here. We are talking about a reign of terror, about helpless Nigerians being abducted, about hapless Nigerians being killed for fun. If nothing else, it should make us sober. If nothing else, we should learn from our past and put politics aside regarding matters of security.

This is the moment for honest reflection and decisive leadership. What Nigeria faces today is not just a temporary challenge. It is a test of the state’s ability to protect its people and preserve its sovereignty. The longer this insecurity wave continues, the closer the nation moves toward the edge of failure.

“A Strong Voice for Ogun West”: High Chief Abiodun Olalekan Ilo Applauds LOYAMP’s Rising Influence and Advocacy

The Adele Olu of Ilaro, High Chief Abiodun Olalekan Ilo, has commended the revitalized League of Yewa-Awori Media Practitioners (LOYAMP) for stepping up at a defining moment to champion the interests of Ogun West.

Speaking from the United States during an online interview with Abu-Satar Hamed of StarTrend International Magazine, High Chief Ilo expressed delight at the impressive volume and quality of publications emerging from LOYAMP’s various media platforms—especially stories spotlighting the developmental strides of Senator Adeola Yayi.

He urged the association to maintain its momentum by giving fair and robust coverage not only to Senator Yayi’s ambitions but also to those of other notable sons and daughters of Ogun West, saying such balanced advocacy is essential to advancing the region’s collective aspirations.

High Chief Ilo encouraged LOYAMP to safeguard its integrity, advising members to steer clear of reports that could compromise their credibility or the trust reposed in them.

Expressing confidence in the group’s leadership and professionalism, he highlighted the influence of its National Coordinator, Otunba Abu-Satar Idowu Hamed—describing him as a seasoned and highly respected journalist whose presence strengthens LOYAMP’s standing.

According to him, Ogun West is now well-positioned with a dedicated and influential Fourth Estate of the Realm committed to the region’s progress.

He further called on the sons and daughters of Ogun West, as well as residents across Ogun State and the nation, to support LOYAMP so the organization can continue to serve both the region and Nigeria with excellence.