President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has forwarded letters to the Senate requesting the confirmation of 21 nominees for the governing boards of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
The development was disclosed on Tuesday by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga.
In the first letter, President Tinubu nominated former senator Magnus Abe as Chairman of the NUPRC board. Abe, who represented Rivers South-East in the Senate 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.
Also nominated as non-executive commissioners of the NUPRC 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 at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
For executive roles within the commission, the President nominated 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), 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 under former President Muhammadu Buhari, while Alka was appointed by President Tinubu in 2023. Others are new nominees.
In a separate letter to the Senate, President Tinubu nominated Mr. Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji as Chairman of the NMDPRA board. Adeniji is a lawyer with over three decades of experience in energy and natural resources law. He previously served as Special Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum on upstream and gas matters and was part of the World Bank Oil and 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. Executive commissioners nominated are Abiodun Adeniji (Finance), Francis Ogaree (Hydrocarbon), Oluwole Adama (Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure), and Dr. Mustapha Lamorde (Corporate Services and Administration).
Additional nominees include Yahaya Nasamu Yinusa (Distribution Systems), Adeyemi Murtala Aminu (Corporate Services), Ms. Modie Ogechukwu (Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning), and Barrister Olawale Dawodu as Secretary and Legal Adviser.
President Tinubu urged the Senate to expedite action on the confirmations, noting that the nominations followed the recent appointment of the chief executive officers of both agencies — Mr. Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan for NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed for NMDPRA.
The President charged all the nominees to discharge their regulatory responsibilities with professionalism and integrity to ensure effective oversight of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
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