President Tinubu appointed 11-member board leaders of NNPCL.
Nigeria News Nalin According to reports, President Bola Tinubu announced a major restructuring of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Co., Ltd., effective April 2, 2025.
The decision includes the removal of current group CEO (GCEO), Mele Kyari and NNPCL board chairman Pius Akinyelure.
As a result, the president appointed Bashir Bayo Ojulari as the new group CEO of NNPCL, while Ahmadu Musa Kida took over as non-executive chairman of the reorganized oil company’s 11-member board of directors.
The president also removed all other other board members appointed by Akinyelure and Kyari and in November 2023, according to a press release issued by Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga in the early morning of Wednesday.
The new 11-member board will include engineer Bashir Bayo Ojulari as group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as non-executive chairman. In addition, CFO Adapo Segun, last November, was added that Umaru Isa Ajiya was appointed to President Tinubu’s new board.
Six board members, non-executive directors, represent the country’s geopolitical zone. They are Bello Rabiu (Northwest), Yusuf Usman (North) and former managing director of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Babs Omotowa representing the central northern region.
President Tinubu appointed Austin Avuru as a non-executive director for the North and South, David Ige as a non-executive director for the Southwest, and Henry Obih as a non-executive director for the Southeast.
Lydia Shehu Jafiya, the permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, will represent the ministry on behalf of the new board, while Aminu said Ahmed will represent the ministry of oil resources.
All dates are effective on Wednesday, April 2.
While President Tinubu citing the powers granted by Article 59, the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 emphasized that the board of directors is crucial to improving operational efficiency, restoring investor confidence, increasing local content, driving economic growth and driving economic growth and promoting commercialization and diversification of gasoline.
President Tinubu also issued an immediate action plan to the new board: a strategic portfolio review of NNPC operations and joint venture assets to ensure alignment with the value maximization goal.
Since 2023, the Tinubu government has implemented oil sector reforms to attract investment. Last year, NNPC reported $17 billion in new investments within the industry. Now, the government envisions increasing its investment to $30 billion in 2027 and $60 billion by 2030.
The Tinubu government aims to increase oil production to 2 million barrels per day by 2027 and 3 million barrels per day by 2030. Meanwhile, the government hopes to reach 8 billion cubic feet per day by 2027 and 10 billion cubic feet by 2030.
In addition, President Tinubu expects the new board of directors to increase NNPC’s crude oil refining output share to 200,000 barrels by 2027 and to 500,000 barrels by 2030.
The new chairman Ahmadu Musa Kida is from Borno State. He is an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, where he received his degree in civil engineering in 1984. He also received a postgraduate diploma in petroleum engineering from Francaise du Petrole (IFP) in Paris.
He began his career in the oil industry with the Nigerian Little Petroleum Company, and later served as a trainee engineer in 1985. Musa became Deputy Managing Director of Nigeria in 2015.
Apart from his oil industry career, Ahmadu Musa Kida is a former basketball player and chairman of the board of directors of the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF).
Ojulari is the new NNPC Limited Group CEO from Kwara State University. Prior to his new appointment, he served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Renaissance African Energy Company. His Renaissance recently led a consortium of indigenous energy companies worth $2.4 billion in the entire equity acquisition of Shell Oil Development Corporation (SPDC) in Nigeria.
Like Kida, Ojulari is also an alumnus of Zaria’s Ahmadu Bello University. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. He worked for Elf Aquitaine and was the first Nigerian process engineer to start a prominent career in the oil field. He set out from Elf and joined the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Co., Ltd. in 1991 as a by-production technology expert.
In addition to working in Nigeria, he also works in Europe and the Middle East, working in different identities as a petroleum process and production engineer, strategic planner, field developer and asset manager. In 2015, he became Managing Director of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO).
During his career, he served as chairman and member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE Council of Nigeria) and a fellow of the Society of Engineers of Nigeria.
President Tinubu thanked the old board members for their dedicated service to NNPC Limited, especially their efforts to repair the old Harcourt and Warri refineries, which allowed them to resume production of oil products after prolonged closures. He hopes that they will go well with their future efforts.
