President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has nominated former senator Magnus Abe and energy expert Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji as board chairmen of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), respectively, and has forwarded their names to the Senate for confirmation.
The nominations were conveyed in two separate letters to the Senate, according to a statement issued on Monday by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga. The President also sought confirmation for 21 nominees to serve on the boards of the two petroleum-sector regulators established under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
For the NUPRC, Tinubu nominated Abe, a two-term senator who represented Rivers South-East Senatorial District, as board chairman. Abe is a former board member of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and currently serves as chairman of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall.
Also nominated as non-executive commissioners of the NUPRC are 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 further nominated seven executive commissioners for the NUPRC: 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.
While Lamido and Adeboyejo were first appointed in 2022 under former President Muhammadu Buhari, and Alka in 2023 by President Tinubu, Inyang, Ezeala, Tijani, Babalola and Jezhi are new nominees.
In the second letter, the President nominated Adeniji, a lawyer with over 30 years’ 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 part of the World Bank Oil and Gas Policy team that advised Nigeria on petroleum-sector reforms. He is currently the managing partner at ENR Advisory.
Also nominated as non-executive members of the NMDPRA board are Chief Kenneth Kobani, a former Minister of State for Trade and ex-Secretary to the Rivers State Government, and Mrs Asabe Ahmed.
Other nominees 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).
Additional proposed members are 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.
President Tinubu urged the Senate to consider and approve the nominations expeditiously, noting that the requests followed the recent confirmation of the chief executive officers of the two agencies. The Senate had earlier confirmed Mr Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as Chief Executive Officer of the NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as Chief Executive Officer of the NMDPRA.
According to the statement, the President charged all appointees and nominees “to discharge their duties and responsibilities professionally as regulators of the oil and gas sectors.”
