• Oshiomhole, Jimkuta celebrate exit, warn successors
• Group urges new NUPRC, NMDPRA chiefs to overhaul oil sector divestment policies
• Eyesan, Mohammed chart ambitious paths
Outgoing Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Farouk Ahmed, has dismissed allegations that he spent about $5 million on his children’s education abroad, insisting that his income, scholarships and family support fully account for the expenses.
This was as Senator Adams Oshiomhole (APC, Edo North) has revealed that he celebrated the resignation of Ahmed and Gbenga Komolafe from Nigeria’s petroleum regulatory leadership with bottles of beer, describing their exit as necessary for Nigeria’s economic survival. Senator David Jimkuta (APC, Taraba South) reportedly drank with the former governor of Edo State.
However, an environmental justice advocacy group working in Nigeria’s oil-producing communities, the Miideekor Environmental Development Initiative (MEDI), called on the incoming leadership of NMDPRA and Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) to urgently overhaul Nigeria’s oil sector divestment policies.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s energy sector could be on the verge of transformation, as Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan and Saidu Mohammed presented an ambitious reform agenda before the National Assembly, pledging data-driven regulation, strengthened local investment and the strategic harnessing of the nation’s oil and gas resources.
In a statement, Ahmed invited anti-graft agencies to investigate his finances, while stating that the claims were misleading and ignored his more than three decades of service in Nigeria’s petroleum sector.
He said he earns about N48 million yearly as NMDPRA chief executive, an amount he noted is publicly available in the agency’s audited reports.
Ahmed traced his career back to 1991, when he joined the then Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) through a competitive civil service examination, emphasising that his rise from a junior engineer to chief executive was based on merit rather than political patronage.
He said he worked across key technical divisions, including crude oil marketing, gas supply monitoring and downstream operations, and rose to General Manager of the Crude Oil Marketing Division by 2012, overseeing the country’s critical revenue stream during a volatile period in the global oil market.
According to him, his appointment as NMDPRA chief executive in 2021 came with a mandate to implement the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) transparently and without favour, a task he said inevitably created opposition from interests accustomed to regulatory opacity.
He argued that recent allegations against him coincided with stricter enforcement actions by the authority, including tighter licensing requirements, quality control measures and transparent pricing mechanisms.
On the education of his children, Ahmed said three of his four children benefited from merit-based scholarships covering between 40 and 65 per cent of tuition, while additional support came from an education foundation established by his late father for his grandchildren before his death in 2018.
He added that his own contribution was drawn from savings accumulated over decades of federal service, cooperative investments available to civil servants and family resources.
He maintained that the cost of his children’s education was consistent with his earnings and did not involve corruption or living beyond his means.
Ahmed said he had submitted asset declarations to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) every year since entering public service and that all his income sources and major expenditures were documented.
The NMDPRA chief further authorised educational institutions attended by his children to release financial records to authorised Nigerian investigators, expressing confidence that such disclosures would disprove the allegations.
He also rejected claims that recent import licensing approvals amounted to economic sabotage, saying the PIA mandated the authority to ensure supply security and prevent scarcity whenever domestic supply is insufficient.
Oshiomhole and Jimkuta spoke yesterday during the screening of President Bola Tinubu’ s nominees as CEOs of NUPRC and NMDPRA.
The Joint Committee on Upstream, Midstream and Downstream and Gas carried out the legislative assignment.
Tinubu had forwarded the names of Eyesan as CEO of NUPRC and Mohammed as CEO of NMDPRA to the Senate for confirmation, following the resignations of Ahmed (NMDPRA) and Komolafe (NUPRC), both appointed in 2021 under the PIA.
The shake-up came after a public dispute between Ahmed and President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, who accused the NMDPRA boss of frustrating domestic refining through the issuance of petroleum import licences and alleged personal corruption.
Oshiomhole, during the screening, criticised the “shameful policy choices” of the outgoing leadership.
“I celebrated it last night,” Oshiomhole said bluntly. “It needed to be done. And I’m still going to drink tonight because of their removal.”
While acknowledging the professional qualifications of one of the nominees, Mohammed, the former labour leader said the real issue was not competence but policy direction.
He warned that job creation would not come from sympathy for the unemployed but from deliberate support for labour-intensive industries such as refineries.
MEDI warned that present practices “are deepening environmental injustice” in oil-producing communities.
In a statement signed yesterday by the Team Lead, Celestine AkpoBari, MEDI welcomed the recent leadership changes at the two regulatory agencies, describing them as an opportunity to restore transparency, accountability, and public trust in the governance of Nigeria’s petroleum industry.
The organisation commended Tinubu for accepting the resignations of Ahmed and Komolafe, as well as for nominating Eyesan and Mohammed as their successors, subject to Senate confirmation.
EYESAN outlined an ambitious reform agenda anchored on digitisation, asset integrity, stakeholder collaboration and full implementation of the PIA, declaring that Nigeria can no longer afford to leave vast oil and gas opportunities “on the table”.
Speaking during her screening before the Senate joint committee, she told lawmakers that effective regulation in today’s energy landscape must be data-driven and globally-connected, warning that institutions without digitised systems wre “losing money and wasting resources.”
“We must analyse real numbers,” she said. “If you do not have a digitised system in today’s operations, you do not even know what you are dealing with.”
Her remarks framed regulation not as bureaucratic control but as strategic coordination; one that brings operators, policymakers and lawmakers into a shared vision. As regulator, she stressed, NUPRC would not replace industry players but would work with them to craft clear laws, regulations and policies that protect assets, unlock investments and maximise value.
Mohammed, on his part, outlined a bold vision aimed at strengthening local investment, boosting gas supply and improving quality enforcement across the industry.
Also speaking before the joint committee, he emphasised the need to protect domestic investments while ensuring Nigeria maximises the value of its energy resources.
“We must establish clear districts and networks,” he said. “Gas is a commodity that is sold before production even begins. Strong contracts between producers, transporters and end-users are essential to ensuring efficient operations.”
He highlighted that rapid gas supply and network reliability were central to industry growth.
Reflecting on his tenure as Managing Director of a Nigerian gas company, Mohammed explained that enforcing network costs and operational standards was critical to maintaining stability and attracting investment.
