Tycoon Azudialu’s Nestoil pays lenders another $40 million

Nestoil Ltd., the Nigerian oil group founded by tycoon Ernest Azudialu-Obiejesi, has paid its lenders another $40 million under a repayment plan brokered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, taking the total paid so far to $100 million.

The latest payment was made on Oct. 19, the group of lenders said in a statement. It follows a first tranche of $60 million announced on Aug. 17. The lenders described the new payment as a significant step forward but said a large part of the debt is still outstanding and will be settled under the agreed repayment plan.

The plan was reached at a meeting chaired by the EFCC’s executive chairman, Olanipekun Olukoyede, between Nestoil, its upstream affiliate Neconde Energy Ltd. and a consortium of lenders. The lenders said the arrangement sets out a framework for the orderly repayment of the debt, subject to the terms agreed by the parties and the law. They said they would keep working with the anti-graft agency until the money owed to them is fully recovered.

More than $1 billion in claims

The $100 million is a small part of what the lenders say they are owed. The consortium, led by FBNQuest Merchant Bank and First Trustees, both subsidiaries of First HoldCo Plc, put the outstanding amount at about $1.08 billion and 469.4 billion naira ($344 million) as of June. Other lenders in the group include Citibank Nigeria, Fidelity Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Stanbic IBTC, Polaris Bank, Providus Bank, Keystone Bank and Globus Bank.

Azudialu-Obiejesi has disputed the basis and size of the claims. After the first payment was announced in August, Nestoil and Neconde rejected reports describing it as an EFCC recovery, denied any suggestion of criminality and said they had been negotiating a memorandum of understanding with the lenders on settling the debt.

The dispute has been in the courts for a year. In October 2025, a Federal High Court judge in Lagos froze assets belonging to Nestoil, Neconde, Azudialu-Obiejesi and his wife, Nnenna, and allowed a receiver to take over Nestoil Towers in Lagos and Neconde’s stake in an oil block. The Supreme Court set aside the freeze on June 1, ruling that the Court of Appeal had exceeded its powers. That judgment did not decide whether Nestoil owes the money, and the case went back to the Federal High Court.

Pumping more oil

Neconde owns 45% of Oil Mining Lease 42, an onshore block in the western Niger Delta, which it bought from Shell, TotalEnergies and Eni in 2011 for about $600 million. The state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Co.’s upstream unit holds the rest. Output from the block rose from about 15,000 barrels a day in 2023 to about 50,000 barrels a day by May 2025, and the company has spoken of a long-term target of more than 120,000 barrels a day.

The group has kept investing while it repays the banks. In late August, Azudialu-Obiejesi said Nestoil’s Pathfinder 500 rig had finished work on two producing wells on the block, and in September Billionaires.Africa reported that he had put $28 million into drilling rigs.

Azudialu-Obiejesi started trading in 1983 under the name Obijackson and founded Nestoil in 1991. His Obijackson Group, which includes Nestoil and Neconde, employs more than 3,000 people in Nigeria.