By Philomina Brando
The Chief Executives of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Engr. Farouk Ahmed, and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Gbenga Komolafe, have resigned, triggering an immediate leadership shake-up in Nigeria’s oil and gas regulatory sector.
President Bola Tinubu has swiftly moved to fill the vacuum, writing to the Senate to seek expedited confirmation of two new chief executives for the agencies established under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
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In a statement on Tuesday, the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said the requests followed the resignation of the two officials, who were appointed in 2021 by former President Muhammadu Buhari to head the newly created regulators.
Tinubu nominated Oritsemeyiwa Amanorisewo Eyesan as Chief Executive of the NUPRC, while Engineer Saidu Aliyu Mohammed was named as Chief Executive of the NMDPRA, urging the upper chamber to treat the nominations as a matter of urgency.
Eyesan, an economist and veteran of the oil and gas industry, is a University of Benin graduate who spent nearly 33 years with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its subsidiaries. She retired as Executive Vice President, Upstream, in 2024, having earlier served as Group General Manager, Corporate Planning and Strategy between 2019 and 2023.
Engineer Mohammed, a chemical engineer and former top executive of NNPC, was born in 1957 in Gombe State and graduated from Ahmadu Bello University in 1981. He was announced on Tuesday as an independent non-executive director at Seplat Energy.
His career spans key leadership roles, including Managing Director of the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company and the Nigerian Gas Company, as well as chairmanship positions on the boards of the West African Gas Pipeline Company, Nigeria LNG subsidiaries and NNPC Retail.
As Group Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, Gas and Power Directorate, Mohammed provided strategic leadership for landmark gas projects and policy frameworks, including the Gas Masterplan, Gas Network Code and major inputs into the Petroleum Industry Act.
He also played pivotal roles in delivering flagship projects such as the Escravos–Lagos Pipeline Expansion, the Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano (AKK) Gas Pipeline and Nigeria LNG Train expansions.
The sudden exits and rapid nominations signal a decisive intervention by the Tinubu administration in the governance of the oil and gas sector, with the Senate now set to determine how quickly the new leadership will take charge of the critical regulatory agencies.