President Bola Tinubu has forwarded two separate letters to the Senate seeking confirmation of 21 nominees to fill vacant positions on the boards of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
The nominations, according to a statement issued on Monday by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, are aimed at strengthening the leadership structure of the two key regulatory agencies established under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
NUPRC Board
For the upstream regulator, President Tinubu nominated former Rivers South-East Senator, Magnus Abe, as Chairman of the NUPRC board. Abe is a former member of the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and currently serves as Chairman of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall.
Also nominated as non-executive commissioners are Engr. Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former Trade Union Congress chairman in Kaduna State, and Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources.
The President also named the following as executive commissioners:
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Muhammed Sabo Lamido – Finance
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Edu Inyang – Exploration and Acreage
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Justin Ezeala – Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning
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Henry Darlington Oki – Development and Production
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Indabawa Bashari Alka – Corporate Services and Administration
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Mahmood Tijani – Health, Safety and Environment
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Olayemi Adeboyejo – Secretary and Legal Adviser
While Lamido and Adeboyejo were first appointed in 2022 under the Buhari administration, Alka was appointed in 2023 by Tinubu. Inyang, Ezeala, Tijani, Babalola and Jezhi are new nominees.
NMDPRA Board
In his second letter, President Tinubu nominated Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji, a legal practitioner with over three decades of experience in energy and natural resources, as Chairman of the NMDPRA board. Adeniji previously served as a technical adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum and was part of the World Bank’s Oil and Gas Policy team for Nigeria.
Other nominees to the NMDPRA board include:
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Chief Kenneth Kobani and Asabe Ahmed – Non-executive members
Kobani is a former Minister of State for Trade and also served as Secretary to the Rivers State Government.
The following were nominated as executive directors:
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Abiodun Adeniji – Finance
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Francis Ogaree – Hydrocarbon
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Oluwole Adama – Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure
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Dr Mustapha Lamorde – Corporate Services and Administration
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Yahaya Nasamu Yinusa – Distribution Systems
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Adeyemi Murtala Aminu – Corporate Services
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Modie Ogechukwu – Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning
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Barrister Olawale Dawodu – Board Secretary and Legal Adviser
Dawodu is an industry professional who previously worked as Financial Reporting Manager with Exxon’s Nigerian subsidiaries.
Call for Speedy Confirmation
President Tinubu urged the Senate to treat the requests with urgency, noting that the nominations follow the recent confirmation of Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as Chief Executive Officer of NUPRC and Engr. Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as Chief Executive Officer of NMDPRA.
He charged all the nominees, once confirmed, to carry out their duties with professionalism in line with their mandate to regulate Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.
