Tinubu names new leadership for petroleum regulators

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President Bola Tinubu has forwarded the names of 21 nominees to the Senate for confirmation as board members of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).

In two separate letters sent to the National Assembly, the president sought the Senate’s approval for appointments to the boards of the two key petroleum sector regulators established under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).

For the NUPRC, President Tinubu nominated a former senator representing Rivers South East, Magnus Abe, as chairman of the board.

Abe is a former member of the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and currently serves as chairman of the National Agency of the Great Green Wall.

Other nominees for the NUPRC board as non-executive commissioners are Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former chairman of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Kaduna State, and Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).

The president also nominated several executive commissioners for the NUPRC board. They include 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), and Mahmood Tijani (Health, Safety and Environment). Olayemi Adeboyejo was nominated as secretary and legal adviser to the commission.

Lamido and Adeboyejo were first 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 request, President Tinubu nominated Adegbite Ebiowei 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 on upstream and gas to the Minister of State for Petroleum and was part of the World Bank Oil and Gas Policy Advisory Team that supported Nigeria’s 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 the NMDPRA 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 in 2024, while Adeniji, Lamorde and Ogaree were appointed between 2021 and 2022 under the Buhari administration.

Additional nominees to the NMDPRA board are Yahaya Nasamu Yinusa (Distribution Systems), Adeyemi Murtala Aminu (Corporate Services), Modie Ogechukwu (Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning), and Olawale Dawodu as board secretary and legal adviser. Dawodu is an industry professional and former financial reporting manager at ExxonMobil’s Nigerian subsidiaries.

President Tinubu urged the Senate to consider and confirm the nominees expeditiously, noting that the requests followed the recent confirmation of the chief executive officers of both agencies.

The Senate had earlier confirmed Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as CEO of NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as CEO of NMDPRA.

The president charged all nominees and appointees to discharge their responsibilities professionally and strengthen regulation of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.