Anxiety over Kyari’s tenure as NNPC GMD

There is growing anxiety over the expiration of the tenure of the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, and the possible appointment of a new helmsman to direct the affairs of the oil giant.

Some industry watchers believe that the NNPCL boss, who turns 60 on January 8, 2025, may exit the national oil firm, raising concerns about the future leadership of the firm.

This came as some other players in the space stated that the GCEO’s tenure is expected to terminate in 2027, in compliance with Section 59 (2) of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 which states that, “The composition of the Board of the NNPC Limited shall be determined in accordance with the Companies and Allied Matters Act and its Articles of Association.”

In July 2022, the NNPC transitioned from a public corporation to a limited liability company, and Kyari moved from being a Group Managing Director to a Group Chief Executive Officer.

Kyari, appointed by former President Muhammadu Buhari in July 2019, is a veteran in the oil industry, having worked at the NNPC for the last 32 years.

His over five years on the job as NNPC’s boss is the longest that anyone has spent in the cushiest office in the Nigerian oil industry since the country’s return to democracy in 1999.

The NNPC has had 19 managing directors since its formation in 1977, with only two of them (Professor Funsho Kupolokun (Ondo, 2003-2007), Augustine O. Oniwon (Kogi, 2010-2012) from the South-West and North-Central.

Kyari is also one of the few appointments alongside the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Commission, Gbenga Komolafe, inherited by President Bola Tinubu that has not yet been dismissed.

Recently, a United States-based Nigerian professor of journalism, Farooq Kperogi, called out Tinubu’s relentless Yoruba-centric take-over of the NNPCL.

Kperogi, in an article titled, ‘Tinubu’s Buharisation of the NNPC’, accused President Tinubu of appointing Yoruba people to key positions at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.

Reports stated that an anonymous source had claimed that a certain Bayo Ojulari was being proposed as GCEO of the NNPCL after the expiration of Mele Kyari’s term.