By Adedapo Adesanya

The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) have strengthened collaboration on data transparency, accountability and regulatory reforms in Nigeria’s petroleum sector.

The commitment was made during a visit by a NEITI delegation led by its Executive Secretary, Mr Musa Sarkin Adar, to the headquarters of NMDPRA, where discussions focused on enhancing data management, technology-driven regulation and transparency across the midstream and downstream segments of the oil and gas industry.

Speaking during the meeting, the chief executive of NMDPRA, Mr Rabiu Abdullahi Umar, said the Authority is implementing key reforms aimed at improving regulatory efficiency and ensuring the integrity of industry data.

According to him, two major initiatives, Project NEXUS and Project 365, are central to the authority’s reform agenda.

He explained that “Project NEXUS is designed to transform the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, while Project 365 is focused on automating the Authority’s processes and services.”

Mr Umar stressed that accurate and reliable data remain critical to effective regulation, policy formulation and decision-making in the petroleum sector.

“Reliable data remains critical to effective regulation and policy formulation,” he said, adding that NMDPRA is leveraging technology to improve product tracking across the petroleum value chain and enhance operational transparency.

The NMDPRA boss further reaffirmed the Authority’s commitment to working closely with NEITI, noting that stronger collaboration would support efforts to deepen transparency and accountability in the industry.

In his remarks, NEITI Executive Secretary, Mr Musa Sarkin Adar, sought NMDPRA’s support in providing critical industry data and information required for the agency’s forthcoming reports.

Mr Adar specifically requested information relating to refinery operations as well as beneficial ownership in the midstream and downstream petroleum sectors, areas that have increasingly become key components of transparency reporting in the extractive industry.

He also invited NMDPRA to participate in NEITI’s exhibition at the 2026 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Global Conference scheduled to be held on October 8 and 9, 2026, in Brussels, Belgium.

The meeting also featured contributions from NMDPRA’s Executive Director, Hydrocarbon Processing Plants, Installations and Transportation Infrastructure, HPPITI, Mr.= Francis Ogaree, and Executive Director, Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning, ER&SP, Mrs Zainab Gobir.

As part of the ongoing conversation around the future of work, 234 Solutions explores the challenges shaping HR, payroll, and workforce management in today’s workplace.

Many HR teams aren’t working from one system. They’re working from five. A system for payroll. Another for attendance. A shared drive for onboarding documents. An inbox full of leave requests. A spreadsheet someone built three years ago that everyone’s too afraid to touch.

Individually, each of these feels manageable. Together, they create a quiet but very real problem.

Every time an employee’s details change, someone has to update it in multiple places and hope nothing gets missed. Every payroll run means cross checking data between systems that don’t talk to each other. Every report means pulling numbers from different sources, reconciling them manually, and praying the figures align.

It’s not chaos. It just looks like extra steps. And those extra steps add up.

What starts as a few minutes here and there becomes hours lost every week, hours that should be going toward hiring, culture, performance, and the people’s conversations that actually move a business forward. Instead, HR teams are spending their time being system administrators.

The irony is that none of these platforms are bad at what they do individually. The problem is the space between them, the manual handoffs, the duplicate entries, the version control headaches, and the inevitable errors that creep in when humans have to bridge what technology should.

Employees feel it too. A leave request that sits in limbo because it’s waiting on an approval in a system a manager rarely checks. An onboarding experience that feels disjointed because no one has a complete picture. Delays that erode trust, quietly.

The question HR leaders are increasingly asking isn’t “do we need better tools?” It’s “do we need fewer of them?”

That’s the thinking behind 234 Solutions, a platform built to bring HR, payroll, and workforce operations into a single, connected experience. Less switching. Less chasing. Less falling through the cracks. And more time for the work that actually requires a human.

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has given Senate President Godswill Akpabio and House Speaker Tajudeen Abbas seven days to ensure lawmakers refund all monies, allowances, and benefits received under the N110 billion vehicle procurement and support allowance schemes declared unlawful by a Federal High Court.

The rights group urged Mr Akpabio, Mr Abbas and the National Assembly “to immediately establish effective mechanisms to ensure that all future procurements and expenditure of public funds comply strictly with due process requirements and are guided by the principles of transparency, accountability and value for money.”

SERAP also urged them “to institutionalise public hearings on the lawmakers’ budget during every budget cycle and proactively publish the National Assembly’s detailed budgetary and expenditure information to enhance transparency, strengthen public confidence, and promote meaningful public participation in the budgeting process.”

The requests followed the judgment of the Federal High Court in Lagos, delivered by Justice Yellim Bogoro in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1606/2023, which found that the spending of N40 billion on 465 vehicles for lawmakers and N70 billion in support allowances for newly elected members breached procurement laws, constitutional obligations, and the public trust.

In the letter signed by SERAP deputy director, Mr Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said: “Flowing from Justice Bogoro’s judgment, there must be consequences and full restitution for the lawmakers’ failure to comply with their constitutional and statutory obligations, particularly in relation to the unlawful expenditure of the N110 billion, as found by the Court.”

“Allowing lawmakers to retain benefits derived from unlawful and unconstitutional expenditure would be entirely inconsistent with the constitutional duty to abolish corrupt practices and abuse of power and would undermine public confidence in democratic institutions,” it said.

“Although the judgment does not expressly order a refund of the N110 billion, it provides a compelling factual and legal basis for restitution when read together with the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended], anti-corruption legislation, and Nigeria’s international human rights obligations.”

“We would be grateful if the recommended measures are taken within 7 days of receipt and/or publication of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions against you, other lawmakers, and the National Assembly to secure the recovery and return of the unlawfully expended N110 billion in the public interest and in accordance with the rule of law,” SERAP demanded.

The group said the reimbursement of “unlawfully obtained benefits” would help to restore public trust, deter future abuses, protect the right to development, and ensure that public resources are used for the benefit of the Nigerian people rather than for private enrichment.