By Our Energy Correspondent
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has sacked the Board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited.
By this action, the erstwhile Chairman of the Board, Pius Akinyelure, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari and the entire Board members who were appointed with in November 2023, are all swept out.
In their place, Mr Tinubu appointed Engr Bashir Bayo Ojulari as the Group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as non-executive Chairman to head the new 11-man Board.
Segun Adedapo who replaced Umaru Isa Ajiya as the Chief Financial Officer last November, has also been appointed to the new Board.
Six non-executive Directors will serve as Board members to represent the country’s geopolitical zones.
They are Bello Rabiu (North West), Yusuf Usman (North East) and Babs Omotowa, a former Managing Director of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (North Central).
Others are Austin Avuru (South-South), David Ige (South West) and Henry Obih (South East).
Mrs Lydia Shehu Jafiya, Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, will represent the Ministry on the new Board, while Aminu Said Ahmed will represent the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
All the appointments are effective from today, April 2, 2025.
Invoking the powers granted under Section 59, subsection 2 of the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021, Tinubu 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.
President Tinubu also handed out an immediate action plan to the new Board, namely, to conduct a strategic portfolio review of NNPC-operated and Joint Venture Assets to ensure alignment with value maximisation objectives.
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, Ahmadu Musa Kida, who hails from Borno State, is an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he acquired 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.
On his part, 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.
President Tinubu thanked the old Board members for their dedicated service to NNPC Limited, particularly their efforts in rehabilitating the old Port Harcourt and Warri refineries, which enabled them to resume petroleum product production after prolonged shutdowns. He wished them well in their future endeavours.
