President Bola Tinubu has nominated former Rivers South-East senator, Magnus Abe, as chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission and forwarded his name, alongside 20 others, to the Senate for confirmation.
The nominations were contained in separate letters sent to the Senate on Monday, where the President asked for quick consideration and approval of board members for the NUPRC and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority.
Abe, who served two terms in the Senate, was previously a board member of the former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and is the current chairman of the National Agency of the Great Green Wall.
A statement by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said Abe would head the NUPRC board with other non-executive commissioners, including Paul Jezhi, a former chairman of the Trade Union Congress in Kaduna, and Sunday Babalola, a former deputy director of the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources.
Seven executive commissioners were also nominated for the NUPRC board. They include Muhammed Lamido for finance, Edu Inyang for exploration and acreage, Justin Ezeala for economic regulation and strategic planning, and Henry Oki for development and production.
Others are Indabawa Alka for corporate services and administration, Mahmood Tijani for health, safety and environment, and Olayemi Adeboyejo as secretary and legal adviser.
Lamido and Adeboyejo were first appointed in 2022 by former President Muhammadu Buhari, while Alka was appointed by Tinubu in 2023. Inyang, Ezeala, Tijani, Babalola and Jezhi are new nominees.
For the NMDPRA, President Tinubu nominated energy lawyer Adegbite Adeniji as board chairman. Adeniji has over three decades of experience in energy and natural resources and previously served as special technical adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum on upstream and gas. He also worked with the World Bank’s Oil and Gas Policy team on Nigeria’s petroleum sector reforms.
Other nominees as non-executive members of the NMDPRA board are Kenneth Kobani, a former minister of state for trade and ex-secretary to the Rivers State government, and Asabe Ahmed.
The executive directors nominated for the authority include Abiodun Adeniji for finance, Francis Ogaree for hydrocarbon processing, Oluwole Adama for midstream and downstream gas infrastructure, and Dr Mustapha Lamorde for corporate services and administration.
Adama was appointed in 2024, while Lamorde and Adeniji were first appointed in 2021 and Ogaree in 2022.
Additional nominees are Yahaya Yinusa for distribution systems, Adeyemi Aminu for corporate services, Modie Ogechukwu for economic regulation and strategic planning, and Olawale Dawodu as board secretary and legal adviser. Dawodu previously worked as a financial reporting manager at Exxon’s Nigerian subsidiaries.
The nominations come shortly after the Senate confirmed Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as chief executive officer of the NUPRC and Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as chief executive officer of the NMDPRA.
Both agencies were created under the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021, which scrapped the Department of Petroleum Resources and restructured regulation of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
The Senate is expected to screen the nominees in the coming weeks before voting on their confirmation.
