Tinubu sacks Mele Kyari as NNPC chief executive

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has sacked the group chief executive officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari.

He also removed Pius Akinyelure as chairman of the state oil company’s board, alongside all other board members appointed in November 2023.

He appointed Bashir Bayo Ojulari as the Group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as board chairman.

Adedapo Segun, who replaced Umaru Isa Ajiya as the chief financial officer last November, has been appointed to the new board.

The president also appointed six board members, non-executive directors, representing the country’s geopolitical zones. They are Bello Rabiu, North West, Yusuf Usman, North East, and Babs Omotowa, North Central. Omotowa is a former managing director of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG).

Austin Avuru was appointed as a non-executive director from the South-South, David Ige represents the South West, and Henry Obih, the South East.

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 a statement by State House spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga.

Who they are

According to the statement, Tinubu 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.

He 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, is from Borno State. He is an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he received 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.

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.

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. 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).

Ojulari is also an alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He worked for Elf Aquitaine as the first Nigerian process engineer to begin a career in the oil sector. From Elf, he joined Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd in 1991 as an associate production technologist.

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. In 2015, he became the managing director of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO).

During his career, he was chairman and member of the board of trustees of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE Nigerian Council) and a fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers.