The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited board has been reconstituted with approval from President Bola Tinubu, whom has removed Chief Pius Akinyelure as chairman and Mallam Mele Kyari as group chief executive officer.Restructuring the board is essential to improving operational efficiency, President Tinubu underlined, using the authority provided by Section 59, subsection 2 of the PIA, 2021.
Early on Wednesday morning, Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President (Information & Strategy), said that Tinubu had dismissed all other board members who had been appointed alongside Akinyelure and Kyari in November 2023.Ahmadu Kida is the Non-Executive Chairman, and Engineer Bashir Ojulari is the Group CEO of the new 11-member board.President Tinubu has chosen Adedapo Segun, who took over as chief financial officer from Umaru Ajiya last November, for the new board. The nation’s geopolitical zones are represented by the six non-executive directors on the board.
They are Babs Omotowa, a former managing director of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), who represents North Central; Bello Rabiu, who represents North West; and Yusuf Usman, who represents North East. South-South non-executive director Austin Avuru, South-West non-executive director David Ige, and South-East non-executive director Henry Obih were all appointed by President Tinubu.
The Federal Ministry of Finance’s permanent secretary, Mrs Lydia Shehu Jafiya, will serve as the ministry’s representative on the new board.On the other hand, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources will be represented by Aminu Ahmed.
As of April 2, all appointments are in effect.President Tinubu, invoking the powers granted under Section 59, subsection 2 of the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021, emphasised that the board’s restructuring is crucial for enhancing operational efficiency, restoring investor confidence, boosting local content, driving economic growth, and advancing gas commercialisation and diversification.
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President Tinubu also gave the new board an immediate action plan to conduct a strategic portfolio review of NNPC-operated and Joint Venture Assets to ensure alignment with value maximisation objectives.Since 2023, the Tinubu administration has implemented oil sector reforms to attract inves
tment.The administration now envisions increasing the investment to $30 billion by 2027 and to $60 billion by 2030.The Tinubu administration aims to raise oil production to two million barrels daily by 2027 and three million daily by 2030.Concurrently, the government wants gas production jacked to 8 billion cubic feet daily by 2027 and 10 billion cubic feet by 2030.
Furthermore, President Tinubu expects the new board to elevate NNPC’s share of crude oil refining output to 200,000 barrels by 2027 and reach 500,000 by 2030.The new board chairman, Kida, is from Borno State, is an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he received a degree in civil engineering in 1984.He also obtained a postgraduate diploma in petroleum engineering from the Institut Francaise du Petrol (IFP) in Paris.
He started his career in the oil industry at Elf Petroleum Nigeria and later joined Total Exploration and Production as a trainee engineer in 1985.Kida became Total Nigeria’s Deputy Managing Director of Deep Water Services in 2015.
Last year, he became an Independent Non-Executive Director at Pan Ocean-Newcross Group.Apart from his oil industry career, Kida is a former basketballer and the president of the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF).
Ojulari, the new NNPC Limited Group CEO, hails from Kwara State.Until his new appointment, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Renaissance Africa Energy Company.His Renaissance recently led a consortium of indigenous energy firms in the landmark acquisition of the entire equity holding in the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), worth $2.4 billion.
Like Kida, Ojulari is also an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.He worked for Elf Aquitaine as the first Nigerian process engineer to begin a stellar career in the oil sector.From Elf, he joined Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd in 1991 as an associate production technologist.Key phrase : NNPCL gets New CEO; President Tinubu sacks NNPCL CEO
