January 05, (THEWILL) — President Bola Tinubu has nominated 21 persons for appointment to the boards of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), forwarding their names to the Senate for confirmation.
In two separate letters addressed to Senate President Godswill Akpabio, the President announced former Senator, Magnus Abe, as Chairman of the NUPRC Board, while Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji was nominated as Chairman of the NMDPRA Board.
Abe, who represented Rivers South-East Senatorial District for two terms, 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. Other nominees for the NUPRC board as non-executive commissioners 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 of the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
President Tinubu also nominated several executive commissioners to the NUPRC board. They include Muhammed Sabo Lamido as Executive Commissioner, Finance; Mr Edu Inyang as Executive Commissioner, Exploration and Acreage; Justin Ezeala as Executive Commissioner, Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning; and Henry Darlington Oki as Executive Commissioner, Development and Production.
Others are Indabawa Bashari Alka as Executive Commissioner, Corporate Services and Administration; Mahmood Tijani as Executive Commissioner, 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 of the President.
For the NMDPRA board, President Tinubu nominated Mr Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji as Chairman. Adeniji, a lawyer with over three decades of experience in energy and natural resources, previously served as Special Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum on upstream and gas matters until 2018. He was also part of the World Bank Oil and Gas Policy Team that advised Nigeria on petroleum sector reforms and the development of the Strategic Gas Plan. 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 Government of Rivers State, and Mrs Asabe Ahmed.
The President further nominated Abiodun Adeniji as Executive Director, Finance; Francis Ogaree as Executive Director, Hydrocarbon; Oluwole Adama as Executive Director, Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure; and Dr Mustapha Lamorde as 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.
Other proposed members of the NMDPRA board include Mr Yahaya Nasamu Yinusa as Executive Director, Distribution Systems; Adeyemi Murtala Aminu as Executive Director, Corporate Services; Ms Modie Ogechukwu as Executive Director, Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning; and Barrister Olawale Dawodu as Board Secretary and Legal Adviser. Dawodu is an industry professional and a former Financial Reporting Manager at Exxon Nigerian subsidiaries.
President Tinubu urged the Senate to consider and confirm the nominees expeditiously, noting that the appointments followed the recent confirmation of the chief executive officers of both agencies. The Senate had earlier confirmed Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as Chief Executive Officer of the NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as Chief Executive Officer of the NMDPRA.
The President charged all nominees and appointees to discharge their duties with professionalism in line with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), as regulators of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
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