President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has forwarded two separate letters to the Senate, seeking 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 a move aimed at strengthening regulation of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
In a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, the President said the nominations followed the recent appointment and Senate confirmation of the chief executive officers of both agencies and underscored his administration’s commitment to professional and effective energy sector governance.
For the NUPRC, President Tinubu nominated Senator Magnus Abe, a two-term senator who represented Rivers South-East, as Chairman of the Board. Abe 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 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).
The President further nominated several executive commissioners for the NUPRC board, including Muhammed Sabo Lamido (Finance), Mr. 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), and Mahmood Tijani (Health, Safety and Environment). Ms. Olayemi Adeboyejo was nominated as Secretary and Legal Adviser.
According to the statement, Lamido and Adeboyejo were first appointed in 2022, Alka in 2023, while Inyang, Ezeala, Tijani, Babalola and Jezhi are fresh nominees of President Tinubu.
In a second letter to the Senate, the President nominated Mr. Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji, a lawyer with over three decades of experience in energy and natural resources, as Chairman of the NMDPRA Board. Adeniji 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 Nigeria on petroleum sector reforms. 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, both as non-executive members.
Also nominated for executive positions 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 Adeniji, Lamorde and Ogaree were appointed between 2021 and 2022.
Additional board members proposed by the President include Mr. 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, through Onanuga, urged the Senate to consider and approve the nominees expeditiously, stressing the strategic importance of the two regulatory agencies to Nigeria’s energy security and economic growth.
The statement added that the President has charged all appointees and nominees to discharge their duties professionally and diligently, in line with the mandates of the Petroleum Industry Act, as regulators of the nation’s oil and gas industry.
