Tinubu Nominates Board Members For NMDPRA, NUPRC

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has written to the Senate, seeking confirmation of 21 nominees for the boards of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission(NUPRC).

This was disclosed by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy in a statement on Monday.

In separate letters, President Tinubu nominated Senator Magnus Abe to serve as the NUPRC board chairman, Abe, who represented Rivers South East in the Senate for two terms, is a former NNPC board member and current chairman of the National Agency of the Great Green Wall.

Other nominees for the NUPRC board are Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former Trade Union Congress chairman in Kaduna, and Mr Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), which was abolished by the PIA in 2021. Both men will serve as non-executive commissioners.

President Tinubu also nominated six executive commissioners to the board.

They are: Muhammed Sabo Lamido, executive commissioner for finance; Mr Edu Inyang, executive commissioner for Exploration and Acreage; Justin Ezeala, executive commissioner for economic regulation and strategic planning; and Henry Darlington Oki, executive commissioner for Development and Production.

In his second letter to the Senate, President Tinubu nominated Mr Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji, a lawyer, as chairman of the NMDPRA board.

Adeniji has over 30 years of experience in energy and natural resources issues. He was a special technical adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum on upstream and gas until 2018.

He was a member of the Oil & Gas Policy team at the World Bank, which advised the Government of Nigeria on the reform and restructuring of the petroleum sector, including the development of the Strategic Gas Plan for Nigeria. He is currently the managing partner at ENR Advisory.

President Tinubu also nominated Chief Kenneth Kobani and Mrs Asabe Ahmed as non-executive members. Kobani was a former minister of state for trade under President Jonathan and secretary to the government of Rivers State, under Nyesom Wike.

Also nominated for confirmation are Abiodun Adeniji, executive director of finance; Francis Ogaree, executive director of hydrocarbon; Oluwole Adama, executive director of midstream and Downstream gas infrastructure; and Dr Mustapha Lamorde, executive director of Corporate Services and Administration. President Tinubu appointed Adama in 2024, while late President Buhari appointed Lamorde and Adeniji in 2021 and Ogaree in  2022

Other members of the NMDPRA board, as proposed by President Tinubu, are Mr Yahaya Nasamu Yinusa, executive director, distribution systems; Adeyemi Murtala Aminu, executive director, corporate services; Mrs Modie Ogechukwu, executive director, economic regulation and strategic planning; and Barrister Olawale Dawodu, as board secretary and legal adviser.  Dawodu is an industry player and was, at a time, the Financial Reporting Manager at Exxon Nigerian subsidiaries.

The President urged the Senate to approve the nominees expeditiously.

The requests followed the recent appointment of chief executive officers for the two regulatory agencies. The Senate confirmed Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as CEO of NMDPRA.

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