President Bola Tinubu has sent letters to the Senate requesting the confirmation of 21 nominees for the boards of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC.
This was revealed in a statement on Tuesday by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
In the first letter, Senator Magnus Abe was nominated to serve as chairman of the NUPRC board. Abe, a two-term senator who represented Rivers South East, previously served as a member of the NNPC board and is presently the 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, and Mr Sunday Adebayo Babalola, who previously worked as a deputy director at the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR. Both are to serve as non-executive commissioners.
President Tinubu also put forward several executive commissioners: 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.
Some of the nominees, including Lamido and Adeboyejo, were first appointed by former President Muhammadu Buhari, while Alka was appointed by President Tinubu in 2023. The remaining nominees are new appointments made by President Tinubu.
In another letter, President Tinubu nominated Mr Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji, a lawyer with more than three decades of experience in energy and natural resources, to serve as chairman of the NMDPRA board. Adeniji previously worked as Special Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum on upstream and gas matters and was a member of the World Bank Oil & Gas Policy team that advised the Nigerian government.
Other nominees for the NMDPRA board include Chief Kenneth Kobani and Mrs Asabe Ahmed as non-executive members. The executive members nominated are Abiodun Adeniji (Finance), Francis Ogaree (Hydrocarbon), Oluwole Adama (Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure), and Dr Mustapha Lamorde (Corporate Services and Administration).
Additional board members listed include Mr Yahaya Nasamu Yinusa (Distribution Systems), Adeyemi Murtala Aminu (Corporate Services), Ms Modie Ogechukwu (Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning), and Barrister Olawale Dawodu (Secretary and Legal Adviser).
The President urged the Senate to fast-track the confirmation of the nominees, following his recent appointment of new chief executive officers for both agencies: Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan for NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed for NMDPRA.
President Tinubu also charged all appointees to carry out their regulatory responsibilities with professionalism to strengthen effective oversight across Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
