Kida, Ojulari Appointed NNPCL Chairman, Group CEO, As Tinubu Overhauls Nigeria’s Premier Energy Firm

Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu has reconstituted the board of the Nigerian National Petroelum Company Limited (NNPC) with Ahmadu Musa Kida and Bashir Bayo Ojulari appointed as new Chairman and Group Managing Director, respectively.

Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga announced this on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 in Abuja, Nigeria.

The new 11-man board, which appointment takes immediate effect, also has six non-executive directors representing the country’s geopolitical zones.

They are Bello Rabiu (North-West), Yusuf Usman (North-East), Babs Omotowa, a former managing director of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG), (North-Central), Austin Avuru (South-South), David Ige (South-West), and Henry Obih (South-East).

Also appointed is NNPCL’s Chief Financial Officer, Adedapo Segun. Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Lydia Shehu Jafiya will represent her Ministry, while Aminu Said Ahmed will represent the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources.

The statement said President Tinubu, in effecting the sweeping reconstitution of the NNPCL Board, removed the Chairman, Pius Akinyelure, Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, as well as all other board members appointed with them in November 2023.

President Tinubu, invoking the powers granted under Section 59, subsection 2 of the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021, emphasised that the board’s restructuring is crucial for enhancing operational efficiency, restoring investor confidence, boosting local content, driving economic growth, and advancing gas commercialisation and diversification.

President Tinubu also 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.

Since 2023, the Tinubu administration has implemented oil sector reforms to attract investment. Last year, NNPC reported $17 billion in new investments within the sector. The administration now envisions increasing the investment to $30 billion by 2027 and $60 billion by 2030.

The Tinubu administration targets raising oil production to two million barrels daily by 2027 and three million daily by 2030. Concurrently, the government wants gas production jacked to 8 billion cubic feet daily by 2027 and 10 billion cubic feet by 2030.

Furthermore, President Tinubu 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.

Kida became Total Nigeria’s Deputy Managing Director of DeepWater 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. His 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), worth $2.4 billion.

Like Kida, 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 stellar 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.

President Tinubu thanked the old board members for their dedicated service to NNPC Limited, particularly their efforts in rehabilitating the old Port Harcourt and Warri refineries, which enabled them to resume petroleum product production after prolonged shutdowns. He wished them well in their future endeavours.