Recruitment and progression at the NNPC

Last year, 60,000 applicants applied for 1,050 Graduate Trainee (GT) openings at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)—equivalent to almost 60 candidates per slot.

Unfortunately, these applicants had to wait for over seven months to know if they would be accepted. In its typical opaque fashion, NNPC did not provide any reasons for the delay. There were even rumours that the corporation had cancelled the recruitment. 

By February this year, NNPC finally reached out to the successful candidates who have resumed work since May 2020. This was NNPC’s first GT recruitment since 2012. 

Despite the unexplained delays, Dr Kennie Obateru, Group General Manager at the NNPC still says it is the most transparent recruitment that has been done by the corporation. That says a lot about the opaqueness of its dealings. 

For those who made it into the company, the experience is similar to working in a private company. As