By Ayo Ayodele
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has forwarded two separate letters to the Senate, seeking confirmation of 21 nominees for the governing boards of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
In the first letter, the President nominated former senator representing Rivers South-South, Senator Magnus Abe, as chairman of the NUPRC board. Abe is a two-term senator, 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 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). Both are nominated as non-executive commissioners.
President Tinubu also nominated several executive commissioners to the NUPRC board. They include 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), and Mahmood Tijani (Health, Safety and Environment). Ms Olayemi Adeboyejo was nominated as secretary and legal adviser to the board.
Lamido and Adeboyejo were initially appointed by former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2022, while Alka was appointed by President Tinubu in 2023. Inyang, Ezeala, Tijani, Babalola and Jezhi are new nominees.
In a second 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 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 former Secretary to the Rivers State Government, and Mrs Asabe Ahmed.
Executive directors nominated for confirmation include Abiodun Adeniji (Finance), Francis Ogaree (Hydrocarbon), Oluwole Adama (Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure), and Dr Mustapha Lamorde (Corporate Services and Administration). Adama was appointed by President Tinubu in 2024, while Lamorde, Adeniji and Ogaree were appointed between 2021 and 2022 by the late former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Other proposed members of the NMDPRA board are Mr Yahaya Nasamu Yinusa (Distribution Systems), Adeyemi Murtala Aminu (Corporate Services), Ms Modie Ogechukwu (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. The requests follow the recent confirmation by the Senate of Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as Chief Executive Officer of the NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as Chief Executive Officer of the NMDPRA.
The President has charged all nominees and appointees to discharge their responsibilities with professionalism in regulating Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.