President Tinubu, invoking the powers granted under Section 59, subsection 2 of the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021 has dissolved the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited board, changing the chairman, Chief Pius Akinyelure and the group chief executive officer, Mallam Mele Kolo Kyari.
The new board has Engineer Bashir Bayo Ojulari as the Group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as non-executive chairman.
Adedapo Segun, appointed the chief financial officer last November, has been moved to the new board.
The six board members and non-executive directors who represent the country’s geopolitical zones are Bello Rabiu, North West, Yusuf Usman, North East, and Babs Omotowa, a former managing director of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas( NLNG), who represents North Central.
President Tinubu appointed Austin Avuru as a non-executive director from the South-South, David Ige as a Non-executive director from the South West, and Henry Obih as a non-executive director from the 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 today, April 2 according to the state house Press Release.
The President 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: to conduct a strategic portfolio review of NNPC-operated and Joint Venture Assets to ensure alignment with value maximisation objectives. President Tinubu also expects the new board to elevate NNPC’s share of crude oil refining output to 200,000 barre ls by 2027 and reach 500,000 by 2030.
Profile of the New GMD
Bashir Bayo Ojulari, an indigene of Kwara State, was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Renaissance Africa Energy Company before his appointment.
Ojulari, an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria who graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, recently led his firm and a consortium of Indigenous energy firms in the landmark acquisition of the entire equity holding in the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, worth $2.4bn.
He began his career as the first Nigerian process engineer at Elf Aquitaine before joining Shell Petroleum Development Company in 1991 as an associate production technologist.
He has held managerial roles in Europe and the Middle East, specialising in petroleum engineering, process engineering, production engineering, and health and safety.
A fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers and member of the Board of Trustees of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE Nigeria Council) from 1998 to 1999.
In November 2015, Ojulari was appointed Managing Director of SNEPCo and General Manager, Deepwater.He also served on the board of Shell Petroleum Development Company, overseeing onshore and offshore petroleum engineering, technical integration of development, well engineering, and project engineering.
Apart from working in Nigeria, he worked in Europe and the Middle East in different capacities as a petroleum process and production engineer, strategic planner, field developer, and asset manager.
Profile of the Chairman
The new Board Chairman, Ahmadu Musa Kida, is from Borno State. He is an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he received a degree in civil engineering in 1984 and a postgraduate diploma in petroleum engineering from the Institut Francaise du Petrol (IFP) in Paris.
He started his career at Elf Petroleum Nigeria and later joined Total Exploration and Production as a trainee engineer in 1985. Musa 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, Ahmadu Musa Kida is a former basketballer and the president of the Nigerian Basketball Federation(NBBF) board.
