By Ono Yima
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has formally requested the Senate’s confirmation of 21 nominees for appointments into the boards of Nigeria’s two key petroleum sector regulators—the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
The request was conveyed in two separate letters to the Senate and announced in a statement issued 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 Board of the NUPRC. Abe, who represented Rivers South-East Senatorial District for two terms, previously served as a board member of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and is currently Chairman of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall.
Also nominated as non-executive commissioners for the NUPRC board are Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former Chairman of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Kaduna State, and Mr Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former Deputy Director at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), which was dissolved following the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in 2021.
President Tinubu further nominated seven executive commissioners for the NUPRC board. They are:
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;
Henry Darlington Oki as Executive Commissioner, Development and Production;
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 originally appointed in 2022 by former President Muhammadu Buhari, while Alka was appointed by President Tinubu in 2023. Inyang, Ezeala—formerly Managing Director of Nigerian Gas Marketing Limited—Tijani, Babalola and Jezhi are fresh nominees by the current administration.
In a second letter, the President nominated Mr Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji as Chairman of the NMDPRA board. Adeniji, a lawyer with over 30 years’ experience in energy and natural resources governance, 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, including the development of the Strategic Gas Plan. He is currently the Managing Partner at ENR Advisory.
Other nominees to the NMDPRA board include Chief Kenneth Kobani and Mrs Asabe Ahmed as non-executive members. Kobani is a former Minister of State for Trade under President Goodluck Jonathan and served as Secretary to the Government of Rivers State during the administration of former Governor Nyesom Wike.
Also nominated for confirmation are Abiodun Adeniji as Executive Director, Finance; Francis Ogaree as Executive Director, Hydrocarbon Processing; Oluwole Adama as Executive Director, Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure; and Dr Mustapha Lamorde as Executive Director, Corporate Services and Administration. While Adama was appointed by President Tinubu in 2024, Lamorde and Adeniji were appointed in 2021 by former President Buhari, and Ogaree in 2022.
Additional members proposed for the NMDPRA board are 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 who previously served as Financial Reporting Manager at ExxonMobil’s Nigerian subsidiaries.
President Tinubu urged the Senate to expedite action on the confirmation process, noting that the nominations follow the recent appointment and Senate confirmation of substantive chief executive officers for the two agencies. The Senate had earlier confirmed Mr Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as Chief Executive Officer of the NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as Chief Executive Officer of the NMDPRA.
The President has charged all appointees and nominees to discharge their responsibilities with professionalism and integrity in line with the mandate of the Petroleum Industry Act, as regulators of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.