President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has asked the Senate to confirm 21 nominees for the boards of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
According to a statement made available to X on Monday by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu nominated Senator Magnus Abe as chairman of the NUPRC board.
Abe, a two-term senator representing Rivers South East, is a former board member of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and currently serves as chairman of the National Agency of the Great Green Wall.
Other nominees for the NUPRC board include Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former Trade Union Congress chairman in Kaduna, and Mr Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director at the now-defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR). Both are nominated as non-executive commissioners.
Tinubu also nominated executive commissioners to the NUPRC board. They are Muhammed Sabo Lamido, finance; Mr 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.
Lamido and Adeboyejo were appointed in 2022 by former President Muhammadu Buhari, while Alka was appointed by President Tinubu in 2023. Inyang, Ezeala, Tijani, Babalola, and Jezhi are new nominees.
In a separate letter, Tinubu nominated Mr Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji as chairman of the NMDPRA board. Adeniji is a lawyer with over 30 years of experience in energy and natural resources.
He previously served as a technical adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum and was part of the World Bank Oil and Gas Policy team that supported Nigeria’s petroleum sector reforms. He is currently the managing partner at ENR Advisory.
Also nominated as non-executive members are Chief Kenneth Kobani, a former Minister of State for Trade and former Secretary to the Rivers State Government, and Mrs Asabe Ahmed.
Other nominees for the NMDPRA board include Abiodun Adeniji (executive director, finance), Francis Ogaree (executive director, hydrocarbon), Oluwole Adama (executive director, midstream and downstream gas infrastructure), and Dr Mustapha Lamorde (executive director, corporate services and administration). Adama was appointed in 2024 by President Tinubu, while Lamorde and Adeniji were appointed in 2021 and Ogaree in 2022 by former President Buhari.
Additional nominees are Mr Yahaya Nasamu Yinusa (executive director, distribution systems), Adeyemi Murtala Aminu (executive director, corporate services), Ms Modie Ogechukwu (executive director, economic regulation and strategic planning), and Barrister Olawale Dawodu as board secretary and legal adviser. Dawodu previously worked as a financial reporting manager at Exxon Nigerian subsidiaries.
The President urged the Senate to consider and approve the nominations promptly. The request follows the recent confirmation of Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as CEO of the NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as CEO of NMDPRA.
President Tinubu has charged all appointees and nominees to carry out their responsibilities professionally in regulating Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
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