Tinubu Seeks Senate Approval for 21 Nominees to NUPRC, NMDPRA Boards

President Bola Tinubu has formally written to the Senate, requesting 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 his first letter, the President nominated former Senator Magnus Abe as chairman of the NUPRC board. Abe, who represented Rivers South-East in the Senate for two terms, previously served on the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and is currently the chairman of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall.

According to a statement issued on Monday by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, other nominees for the NUPRC board include Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former chairman of the Trade Union Congress in Kaduna State, and Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director at the now-defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR). Both were nominated as non-executive commissioners.

President Tinubu also submitted names of executive commissioners for the NUPRC board. They include Muhammed Sabo Lamido (Finance), Edu Inyang (Exploration and Acreage), Justin Ezeala (Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning), and Henry Darlington Oki (Development and Production). Others are Indabawa Bashari Alka (Corporate Services and Administration), Mahmood Tijani (Health, Safety and Environment), and Olayemi Adeboyejo, who was nominated as secretary and legal adviser.

While Lamido and Adeboyejo were originally appointed by former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2022, Alka was appointed by President Tinubu in 2023. Inyang, Ezeala, Tijani, Babalola, and Jezhi are new nominees.

In a second letter, President Tinubu nominated Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji as chairman of the NMDPRA board. Adeniji, a lawyer with over three decades of experience in energy and natural resources, previously served as a technical adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum and worked with the World Bank on oil and gas 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 ex-Secretary to the Rivers State Government, and Asabe Ahmed as non-executive members.

Also nominated 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).

While Adama was appointed in 2024 by President Tinubu, 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), 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 nominations without delay, noting that the requests followed the recent confirmation of chief executives for both agencies. The Senate had earlier approved Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan as Chief Executive Officer of NUPRC and Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed as Chief Executive Officer of NMDPRA.

The President charged all appointees to carry out their responsibilities professionally in regulating Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.