President Bola Tinubu has moved to reconstitute the governing boards of Nigeria’s key oil and gas regulatory agencies, forwarding two separate letters to the Nigerian Senate for the confirmation of 21 nominees to the boards of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
The nominations, the President said, are aimed at strengthening governance, deepening regulatory effectiveness and consolidating reforms introduced by the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
For the upstream regulator, President Tinubu nominated Magnus Abe, a former two-term senator for Rivers South-East, as Chairman of the NUPRC Board.
Abe is a former board member of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company and currently chairs the National Agency of the Great Green Wall, bringing legislative experience and sectoral exposure to the commission.
Also nominated as non-executive commissioners are Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former Trade Union Congress chairman in Kaduna State, and Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), which was dissolved following the PIA’s enactment in 2021.
The President further named a full slate of executive commissioners for the NUPRC Board:
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 Olayemi Adeboyejo as Secretary and Legal Adviser.
While Lamido and Adeboyejo were first appointed in 2022 and Alka in 2023, the President’s latest nominations introduce new members to the board, signalling a balance between continuity and renewal at the upstream regulator.
In a separate communication, President Tinubu nominated Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji as Chairman of the NMDPRA Board.
Adeniji, a lawyer with over 30 years’ experience in energy and natural resources, 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 supported Nigeria’s petroleum sector reforms. He is currently Managing Partner at ENR Advisory.
The President also nominated Kenneth Kobani and Asabe Ahmed as non-executive members of the NMDPRA Board. Kobani is a former Minister of State for Trade and a former Secretary to the Rivers State Government.
For executive positions at NMDPRA, the nominees are Abiodun Adeniji (Finance), Francis Ogaree (Hydrocarbon), Oluwole Adama (Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure), and Mustapha Lamorde (Corporate Services and Administration).
Adama was appointed in 2024, while Adeniji and Lamorde were appointed in 2021 and Ogaree in 2022. Other nominees to the NMDPRA Board include Yahaya Nasamu Yinusa (Distribution Systems), Adeyemi Murtala Aminu (Corporate Services), Modie Ogechukwu (Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning), and Olawale Dawodu as Board Secretary and Legal Adviser. Dawodu previously worked as a financial reporting manager at Exxon’s Nigerian subsidiaries.
President Tinubu urged the Senate to consider the nominations expeditiously, stressing the strategic importance of strong and credible boards to the effectiveness of the regulators established under the PIA.
The request follows the recent confirmation by the Senate of the chief executive officers of the two agencies, with Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan confirmed as CEO of the NUPRC and Saidu Aliyu Mohammed confirmed as CEO of the NMDPRA.
In a statement issued by the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the President has charged all nominees and appointees to discharge their responsibilities with professionalism, independence, and integrity, in line with the administration’s commitment to transparency, effective regulation, and sustainable growth across Nigeria’s oil and gas value chain.
