President Bola Tinubu has nominated former Senator representing Rivers South-East, Magnus Abe, as chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), and forwarded his name alongside 20 others to the Senate for confirmation.
In separate letters sent to the upper chamber on Monday, the President sought expedited approval for nominees to serve on the boards of the NUPRC and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
Abe, a two-term senator, previously served on the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and currently chairs the National Agency of the Great Green Wall.
According to a statement issued by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, Abe is to lead the NUPRC board alongside non-executive commissioners including Paul Jezhi, a former chairman of the Trade Union Congress in Kaduna State, and Sunday Babalola, a former deputy director of the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
Seven executive commissioners were also nominated to the NUPRC board. They include Muhammed Lamido as executive commissioner for finance; Edu Inyang for exploration and acreage management; Justin Ezeala for economic regulation and strategic planning; and Henry Oki for development and production.
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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 by former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2022, while Alka was appointed by President Tinubu in 2023. Inyang, Ezeala, Tijani, Babalola and Jezhi are new nominees.
For the NMDPRA board, President Tinubu nominated Adegbite Adeniji, a legal practitioner with over three decades of experience in energy and natural resources, as chairman.
Adeniji previously served as special technical adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources 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 Strategic Gas Plan, and is currently the managing partner at ENR Advisory.
Other nominees for the NMDPRA board include former Minister of State for Trade, Kenneth Kobani, and Asabe Ahmed as non-executive members.
The executive directors nominated for the authority are 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.
Additional nominees include Yahaya Yinusa as executive director 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.
President Tinubu appointed Adama in 2024, while the late President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Lamorde and Adeniji in 2021 and Ogaree in 2022. Dawodu previously served as financial reporting manager at ExxonMobil Nigerian subsidiaries.
The nominations follow the recent confirmation by the Senate of Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as Chief Executive Officer of the NUPRC and Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as Chief Executive Officer of the NMDPRA.
Both regulatory agencies were established under the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021, which dismantled the former Department of Petroleum Resources and restructured governance in Nigeria’s petroleum sector.
The Senate is expected to screen the nominees in the coming weeks ahead of final confirmation.