President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has forwarded two separate letters to the Senate, requesting the confirmation of 21 nominees for the boards of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
In the first letter, the President nominated former Senator Magnus Abe as chairman of the NUPRC board. 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 of 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 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 Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) of 2021.
President Tinubu further nominated several executive commissioners to the NUPRC board. They include 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.
While Lamido and Adeboyejo were initially appointed by former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2022 and Alka by President Tinubu in 2023, others—including Inyang, Ezeala, Tijani, Babalola and Jezhi—are new nominees.
In a second letter, President Tinubu nominated Mr Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji as chairman of the NMDPRA board. Adeniji, a lawyer with over 30 years’ experience in the energy and natural resources sector, previously served as special technical adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum on upstream and gas matters and worked with the World Bank’s Oil and Gas Policy team. He is currently the managing partner at ENR Advisory.
Other nominees for the NMDPRA board include Chief Kenneth Kobani, a former Minister of State for Trade and former Secretary to the Government of Rivers State, and Mrs Asabe Ahmed as non-executive members.
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). Adama was appointed in 2024, while Lamorde and Adeniji were appointed in 2021 and Ogaree in 2022 by the late President Buhari.
Additional nominees include 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 Barrister Olawale Dawodu as board secretary and legal adviser.
President Tinubu urged the Senate to consider and approve the nominees expeditiously, noting that the requests followed the recent appointment of chief executive officers for both agencies. The Senate has already confirmed Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as CEO of NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as CEO of NMDPRA.
The President charged all appointees and nominees to discharge their duties professionally in regulating Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.