Ahmadu Musa Kida, has been apponted as the new board chairman of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, replacing Chief Pius Akinyelure. The appointment took effect immediately following the announcement which was made at the early hours of Wednesday.
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.
The new 11-man board has Bashir Bayo Ojulari as the Group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as non-executive chairman.
Kida, the new board chairman hails 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 Deep Water Services in 2015. Last year, he became an Independent Non-Executive Director at Pan Ocean-Newcross Group.
Read also: Austin Avuru, Musa-Kida join NNPC’s board as Tinubu reshuffles
Apart from his oil industry career, Ahmadu Musa Kida is a former basketballer and the president of the Nigerian Basketball Federation(NBBF) board.
Other board members and non-executive directors, include Adedapo Segun, Bello Rabiu, (North West), Yusuf Usman (North East), and Babs Omotowa, a former managing director of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas( NLNG), who represents North Central.
President Tinubu appointed Austin Avuru as a non-executive director from the South-South, David Ige as a Non-executive director from the South West, and Henry Obih as a non-executive director from 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.
With this appointment, President 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.
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 task 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.