New NNPCL team must raise the bar

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu recently appointed a new team for the board and management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL). The new 11-man board of the company is composed of Engineer Bashir Ojulari as Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ahmad Musa Kida as non-executive chairman as well as Adedapo Segun, Yusuf Usman, Babs […]

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu recently appointed a new team for the board and management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).

The new 11-man board of the company is composed of Engineer Bashir Ojulari as Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ahmad Musa Kida as non-executive chairman as well as Adedapo Segun, Yusuf Usman, Babs Omotowa, David Ige, Henry Obih, and Bello Rabiu. The rest are Mrs Lydia Shehu Jafiya, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, and Aminu Said representing the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. The new board replaced the former board which had Chief Pius Akinyelure and Engineer Mele Kyari as non-executive chairman and Chief Executive Officer, respectively.

In reconstituting the NNPCL board and management, President Tinubu was invoking the powers granted under Section 59 Subsection 2 of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA 2021).

The president stated that the board restructuring was meant to enhance operational efficiency, restore investor confidence, boost local content, drive economic growth and advance gas commercialisation and diversification.

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In line with these objectives, President Tinubu handed out an immediate action plan to the new board to conduct a strategic review of NNPCL’s Joint Venture in order to ‘’ensure alignment with value maximisation objectives’’.

The statement further said that, “The Tinubu administration targets raising oil production to two million barrels daily by 2027 and three million daily by 2030. Concurrently, the government wants to increase gas production to eight million cubic feet daily by 2027 and 10 billion cubic feet by 2030.’’

By all accounts, these are lofty and realisable objectives which if diligently implemented will no doubt reposition Nigeria’s oil and gas industry to its proper place both locally and internationally. And as the president stated, restructuring the NNPCL is the right thing to do under the circumstances.

Nigerians have for long watched with dismay as the fortunes of the oil and gas sector continued to atrophy over the years. As one of the top ten oil-producing countries with billions of proven hydrocarbon reserves, it is nevertheless disappointing that Nigeria continues to import petroleum products at prohibitive cost. It is even scandalous that the oil infrastructure including refineries, pipelines and depots built at great cost to supply petroleum products to the Nigerian domestic markets has been left to rot to the point of non-functionality.

The Petroleum Industry Act passed in 2021, which was intended to address the myriad of issues identified in the oil and gas sector, has so far not been as effective as desired. The immediate past board and management which were expected to kickstart the implementation of the oil sector reforms under the PIA were weighed down by legacy issues they could not buck off.

It is, therefore, commendable that President Tinubu had taken care to select people with proven competence, but without direct connection or attachments to issues that mired the performance of the sector in the past. This places a burden of responsibility on the new board and management of the NNPCL to deliver without prejudice on the expectations of Nigerians.

In this regard as a low-hanging fruit, Nigerians expect that the new NNPCL board and management will work assiduously to ensure the availability and affordability of petroleum products in the country. The revamping of our four refineries for which so much had been spent but which has so far not yielded the expectation of Nigerians, must be diligently implemented. The non-functioning of the refineries which necessitates importation of petroleum products into the country casts a poor light on our status as a major global oil-producing nation. The new NNPCL team must get to the root of the issues pertaining to the production and supply of petroleum products in the country and resolve it comprehensively.

Allied to that, it must also reach a sustainable working arrangement with the Dangote Refinery and other local refineries on how to ensure constant supply of petroleum products at reasonable prices to the Nigerian consumer. It makes little sense to Nigerians that while we have such great reserves of crude oil as well as refining capacity with both the NNPCL-owned refineries and the Dangote Refinery, we still have to import refined products into the country. We welcome the announcement by the federal government that the crude-for-naira is a permanent policy. We urge the board and management of the NNPCL to ensure its continuous implementation.

All told, what matters to Nigerians is not necessarily the restructuring of the NNPCL but more importantly, they want to see the positive outcomes of such actions in terms of supply and affordability of petroleum products in the country as well as the improvements in the fortunes of the company.