The Senate is to investigate an allegation that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Nigerian Development Petroleum Company (NDPC) failed to remit $4 billion into the Federation Account.

The Senate arrived at the decision during Tuesday plenary after the adoption of a motion on the misappropriation of funds by the NNPC and NDPC which was sponsored by Senator Dino Melaye from Kogi West.

Senator Melaye expressed shock that despite the fact that Nigeria is in a change era some individuals have not remitted over $4 billion to the government coffers even at a time government is planning to borrow from external sources.

Supporting the motion, other Law Makers opined that there were unremitted Billions of dollars at a time when Nigeria is seeking loans from IMF, World Bank, and the Bond Market, saying that these funds should be refunded to the consolidated revenue account to tackle recession‎.

‎While Nigeria is faced with a lot of crisis, the Senate expressed concern that about 70% of revenue generated from the oil sector was being withheld by an agency of government.

After deliberations on the issue, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, tasked the Senate Committees on Petroleum (Upstream and Downstream) and Finance to investigate the allegation and present their report by 9th of January.

The move to probe the allegation was supported by all other lawmakers present at the plenary with the Senate president calling for an end to acts of sabotaging the efforts of the anti-corruption agencies‎.