President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has asked the Senate to confirm the appointment of Senator Magnus Abe and energy expert Adegbite Ebiowei Adeniji as board chairmen of two key oil and gas regulatory agencies.
In separate letters to the Senate, the President nominated Abe as chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and Adeniji as chairman of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
A statement issued on Monday by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said Tinubu also sought confirmation for 21 nominees to serve on the boards of both regulators established under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
Abe, who represented Rivers South-East Senatorial District in the Senate for two terms, was nominated to chair the NUPRC board. He previously served as a board member of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and currently chairs the National Agency for the Great Green Wall.
Other nominees for the NUPRC board include Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi and Mr. Sunday Adebayo Babalola as non-executive commissioners, while seven executive commissioners were also proposed, covering finance, exploration, production, corporate services, health and safety, and legal affairs.
For the NMDPRA, Tinubu nominated Adeniji, a lawyer with over three decades of experience in energy and natural resources, who previously served as a Special Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum and worked with the World Bank on oil and gas sector reforms.
Additional nominees to the NMDPRA board include former Minister of State for Trade, Chief Kenneth Kobani, Mrs. Asabe Ahmed, and several executive directors responsible for finance, hydrocarbon processing, gas infrastructure, distribution systems, and corporate services.
The President urged the Senate to consider the nominations expeditiously, noting that the requests followed the recent confirmation of the chief executive officers of the two agencies. He also called on all nominees “to discharge their duties and responsibilities professionally as regulators of the oil and gas sectors.”
