President Bola Tinubu has nominated Senator Magnus Abe and twenty (20) others into the boards of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
The nominations were contained in two separate letters the president wrote to the Senate, seeking confirmation of the 21 nominees for the NUPRC and NMDPA boards.
This was stated in a State House Press Release, on Monday, by the Special Adviser (Information & Strategy) to the President, Bayo Onanuga.
As stated in the press release, President Tinubu, in the first letter, nominated Senator Abe to serve as the NUPRC board chair.
Abe, who represented Rivers South-East in the Senate for two terms, is a former NNPCL Board member and current chairman of the National Agency of the Great Green Wall.
Other nominees for the NUPRC Board are Mr Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former Trade Union Congress (TUC) chairman in Kaduna; and Mr Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), which was abolished by the PIA in 2021.
Both men, Jezhi and Babalola, will serve as non-executive commissioners.
Tinubu also nominated six executive commissioners to the board, including Muhammed Sabo Lamido (Executive Commissioner for Finance; Mr Edu Inyang (Executive Commissioner for Exploration and Acreage);
Justin Ezeala (Executive Commissioner for Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning); and Henry Darlington Oki (Executive Commissioner for Development and Production.
Others are Indabawa Bashari Alka (Executive Commissioner for Corporate Services and Administration); Mahmood Tijani (Executive Commissioner for Health, Safety and Environment); and Ms Olayemi Adeboyejo (Secretary and Legal Adviser).
The late former President Buhari had appointed Lamido and Adeboyejo in 2022, while President Tinubu appointed Alka in 2023.
Inyang, Ezeala, the former Managing Director of Nigerian Gas Marketing Limited, Mahmood Tijani, Babalola and Jezhi are new appointees of President Tinubu.
Tinubu, in his second letter to the Senate, nominated Mr Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji, a lawyer (Chairman of the NMDPRA Board).
Adeniji has over 30 years of experience in energy and natural resources issues.
He was a Special Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum on Upstream and Gas until 2018.
He was a member of the Oil & Gas Policy Team at the World Bank, which advised the Nigerian Government on the reform and restructuring of the petroleum sector, including the development of the Strategic Gas Plan for Nigeria.
Adeniji is currently the Managing Partner at ENR Advisory.
The president also nominated Chief Kenneth Kobani and Mrs Asabe Ahmed as non-executive members of NMDRA.
Kobani was a former Minister of State for Trade under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration and Secretary to the Government of Rivers State, under Chief Nyesom Wike.
Also nominated for confirmation are 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).
President Tinubu appointed Adama in 2024, while the late President Buhari appointed Lamorde and Adeniji in 2021 and Ogaree in 2022
Other members of the NMDPRA Board, as proposed by Tinubu, are Mr 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 Mr Olawale Dawodu (Board Secretary and Legal Adviser.
Dawodu is an industry player and was, at a time, the Financial Reporting Manager at Exxon Nigerian subsidiaries.
The requests followed the recent appointment of chief executive officers for the two regulatory agencies.
The Senate confirmed Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as the (CEO) of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as CEO of NMDPRA.
President Tinubu urged the Senate to approve the nominees expeditiously and also urged all the appointees and nominees to discharge their duties and responsibilities professionally as regulators of the oil and gas sectors.
