President Tinubu has announced 21 fresh appointments.
NaijaOnPoint Nigeria reports that President Bola Tinubu has forwarded letters to the Senate requesting confirmation of 21 nominees for the boards of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
The development was disclosed on Tuesday by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga.
In the first letter, Tinubu nominated former senator and ex-NNPC board member, Senator Magnus Abe, as Chairman of the NUPRC board. Abe, who represented Rivers South East for two terms in the Senate, currently chairs the National Agency for the Great Green Wall.
Other nominees for the NUPRC board as non-executive commissioners include Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former chairman of the Trade Union Congress in Kaduna State, and Mr. Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
The President also proposed several executive commissioners for the NUPRC, including Muhammed Sabo Lamido (Finance), Edu Inyang (Exploration and Acreage), Justin Ezeala (Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning), Henry Darlington Oki (Development and Production), Indabawa Bashari Alka (Corporate Services and Administration), Mahmood Tijani (Health, Safety and Environment), and Ms. Olayemi Adeboyejo as Secretary and Legal Adviser.
Some of the nominees, including Lamido and Adeboyejo, were initially appointed under former President Muhammadu Buhari, while Alka was appointed by Tinubu in 2023. Others are fresh nominations by the current administration.
In a separate letter, President Tinubu nominated Mr. Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji, a lawyer with over three decades of experience in energy and natural resources, as Chairman of the NMDPRA board. Adeniji previously served as Special Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum on upstream and gas matters and was a member of the World Bank Oil and Gas Policy team that advised the Nigerian government.
Other nominees for the NMDPRA board include Chief Kenneth Kobani and Mrs. Asabe Ahmed as non-executive members. Executive nominees are Abiodun Adeniji (Finance), Francis Ogaree (Hydrocarbon), Oluwole Adama (Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure), and Dr. Mustapha Lamorde (Corporate Services and Administration).
Additional board members nominated include Yahaya Nasamu Yinusa (Distribution Systems), Adeyemi Murtala Aminu (Corporate Services), Ms. Modie Ogechukwu (Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning), and Barrister Olawale Dawodu as Secretary and Legal Adviser.
President Tinubu urged the Senate to expedite confirmation of the nominees, following the recent appointment of Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as Chief Executive Officer of the NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as Chief Executive Officer of the NMDPRA.
The President charged the nominees to discharge their regulatory responsibilities with professionalism to strengthen oversight and governance in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.