4 days Ago By Lawrence Olaoye
President Bola Tinubu has approved a reconstitution of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) board, removing the Chairman, Pius Akinyelure, and the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Mele Kolo Kyari. According to a statement released on Wednesday morning by his spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu also dismissed all other board members appointed alongside Akinyelure and Kyari in November 2023. The newly constituted 11-member board will be led by Bashir Bayo Ojulari as the Group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as the Non-Executive Chairman.
Adedapo Segun, who replaced Umaru Isa Ajiya as Chief Financial Officer in November 2024, has also been appointed to the new board by the President. Other members include Bello Rabiu from the North West, Yusuf Usman from the North East, Babs Omotowa, a former Managing Director of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), representing the North Central, Austin Avuru from the South-South, David Ige from the South-West, and Henry Obih from the South-East. Lydia Shehu Jafiya, Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, will represent the ministry, while Aminu Said Ahmed will represent the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
All appointments take effect from April 2, 2024. Invoking Section 59, Subsection 2 of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, President Tinubu emphasized that the board’s restructuring aims to enhance operational efficiency, restore investor confidence, boost local content, drive economic growth, and advance gas commercialization and diversification. He also directed the new board to conduct a strategic portfolio review of NNPC-operated and joint venture assets to ensure alignment with value maximization objectives.
Since 2023, the Tinubu administration has pursued oil sector reforms to attract investment, with the NNPC reporting $17 billion in new sector investments last year. The government now targets increasing investment to $30 billion by 2027 and $60 billion by 2030. The administration’s production targets include raising crude oil output to two million barrels per day by 2027 and three million barrels daily by 2030.
It also plans to increase gas production to eight billion cubic feet per day by 2027 and ten billion cubic feet by 2030. The government further expects the NNPC’s share of refining output to rise to 200,000 barrels per day by 2027 and reach 500,000 barrels per day by 2030. Ahmadu Musa Kida, the new Non-Executive Chairman, hails from Borno State.
He is an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1984. He also obtained a postgraduate diploma in petroleum engineering from the Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP) in Paris. Kida began his career at Elf Petroleum Nigeria before joining Total Exploration and Production in 1985.
He became Total Nigeria’s Deputy Managing Director of Deep Water Services in 2015 and, in 2023, an Independent Non-Executive Director at Pan Ocean-Newcross Group. Apart from his oil industry career, Kida is a former basketball player and previously served as the President of the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF). Bashir Bayo Ojulari, the new Group CEO of NNPC Limited, is from Kwara State.
Until his appointment, he was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Renaissance Africa Energy Company. Renaissance recently led the $2.4 billion acquisition of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC).
He is also a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria..
