President Tinubu Appoints Ojulari As New NNPC CEO, Kida As Board Chairman

President Tinubu also removed all other board members appointed alongside Akinyelure and Kyari in November 2023.

The newly constituted 11-member board has Engineer Bashir Bayo Ojulari as the Group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as the non-executive chairman.

Adedapo Segun, who replaced Umaru Isa Ajiya as the chief financial officer last November, has now been appointed to the new board by President Tinubu.

Six non-executive directors represent the country’s geopolitical zones on the board. They include Bello Rabiu (North West), Yusuf Usman (North East), and Babs Omotowa, a former managing director of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), representing North Central.

President Tinubu also appointed Austin Avuru as a non-executive director from the South-South, David Ige from the South West, and Henry Obih from the South East.

Mrs. Lydia Shehu Jafiya, the permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, will represent the ministry on the new board, while Aminu Said Ahmed will represent the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.

All appointments are effective from April 2, 2025.

Invoking the powers granted under Section 59, Subsection 2 of the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021, President Tinubu emphasized that the board’s restructuring is crucial for enhancing operational efficiency, restoring investor confidence, boosting local content, driving economic growth, and advancing gas commercialization and diversification.

Additionally, the president tasked the new board with conducting a strategic portfolio review of NNPC-operated and Joint Venture assets to align with value maximization objectives.

Since 2023, the Tinubu administration has implemented oil sector reforms to attract investment. Last year, NNPC reported $17 billion in new investments within the sector. The administration now aims to increase this figure to $30 billion by 2027 and $60 billion by 2030.

The government also targets raising oil production to two million barrels per day by 2027 and three million barrels per day by 2030. Simultaneously, it aims to increase gas production to 8 billion cubic feet per day by 2027 and 10 billion cubic feet per day by 2030.

Furthermore, President Tinubu expects the new board to increase NNPC’s share of crude oil refining output to 200,000 barrels per day by 2027 and 500,000 barrels per day by 2030.

Profiles of Key Appointees

The new board chairman, Ahmadu Musa Kida, hails from Borno State. He is an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he obtained a degree in civil engineering in 1984. He also earned a postgraduate diploma in petroleum engineering from the Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP) in Paris.

He began his oil industry career at Elf Petroleum Nigeria and later joined Total Exploration and Production as a trainee engineer in 1985. Kida became Total Nigeria’s Deputy Managing Director of Deep Water Services in 2015 and, last year, became an Independent Non-Executive Director at Pan Ocean-Newcross Group.

Beyond the oil industry, Kida is a former basketball player and served as president of the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF).

Ojulari, the new NNPC Limited Group CEO, is from Kwara State. Until his new appointment, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Renaissance Africa Energy Company. Renaissance recently led a consortium of indigenous energy firms in the landmark $2.4 billion acquisition of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC).

Like Kida, Ojulari is also an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. He started his career as the first Nigerian process engineer at Elf Aquitaine before joining Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd in 1991 as an associate production technologist.

Ojulari has worked in Europe and the Middle East in various capacities as a petroleum process and production engineer, strategic planner, field developer, and asset manager. In 2015, he was appointed managing director of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO).