President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has approved the creation of a high-powered Presidential Petroleum Reform & Value Optimisation Taskforce, charged with designing and sequencing the next phase of structural reforms in Nigeria’s petroleum sector.
The announcement was contained in a State House press release issued on Friday, March 13, 2026, by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy.
Leading the taskforce as chairman is Mr Fola Adeola, co-founder of Guaranty Trust Bank and founder/chairman of the FATE Foundation. Adeola will coordinate the group’s activities and ensure timely delivery of its mandate.
Other members include Ademola Adeyemi-Bero, Osagie Okunbor, Abubakar Suleiman, Adaeze Aguele, Farouk Gumel, Phillipa Osakwe-Okoye, and Seyi Bella. Mofoluwasho Fadayomi has been appointed secretary of the taskforce.
The taskforce is constituted as a time-bound, high-level executive working group with a clear mandate to produce execution-ready reform blueprints. Its primary objectives are to consolidate ongoing reforms, unlock significant capital within the petroleum sector, and reinforce Nigeria’s attractiveness as a leading global energy investment destination.
President Tinubu’s directive underscores his administration’s determination to transform the petroleum industry into a more competitive, transparent, and value-maximising sector capable of driving sustained economic growth, macroeconomic stability, and industrial development.
Unlike representative committees, the taskforce will function strictly as a technical reform body. It will engage industry operators, regulators, investors, and civil society as consultees but will focus principally on actionable policy design and implementation strategies.
The group will report directly to the President and submit monthly progress memoranda. An interim report is expected after three months, with final deliverables due within six months of inauguration.
President Tinubu has outlined three major reform blueprints the taskforce is required to produce:
Implementation Toolkit for Immediate Structural Fixes — comprising draft legislative amendments, executive instruments, and institutional restructuring proposals to address urgent gaps in the current framework.
Capital & Liquidity Acceleration Blueprint — aimed at unlocking between $5 billion and $10 billion in sectoral liquidity while protecting Nigeria’s sovereign interests and ensuring long-term national benefit.
National Energy Transformation Strategy — a comprehensive ten-year roadmap featuring measurable targets for crude oil and gas production, foreign exchange earnings, contribution to GDP, and improvements in cost competitiveness.
To guarantee alignment and avoid duplication, the President has directed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), regulators, and relevant institutions to provide full technical support to the taskforce. They have also been instructed to submit comprehensive inventories of ongoing initiatives and reform efforts within the sector.
Furthermore, President Tinubu has ordered all existing committees, teams, and working groups established under previous or parallel reform initiatives in the petroleum industry to align their activities, reporting lines, and work programmes with the new taskforce. This streamlining is intended to enhance coordination, eliminate overlapping mandates, and bring institutional clarity to the sector’s reform architecture.
All relevant documentation, institutional knowledge, and ongoing workstreams are to be made immediately available to the taskforce to facilitate the development and eventual implementation of a coherent, comprehensive reform framework.
The creation of the Presidential Petroleum Reform & Value Optimisation Taskforce represents a strategic presidential instrument designed to accelerate reforms, strengthen governance structures, optimise national energy assets, and position Nigeria’s petroleum resources as a solid foundation for sustainable economic transformation.
The taskforce will automatically dissolve upon submission and acceptance of its final report.
Industry observers view the move as a significant step toward addressing long-standing structural challenges in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, including governance inefficiencies, low domestic refining capacity, persistent subsidy burdens (despite recent reforms), under-investment in upstream activities, and limited value addition along the hydrocarbon chain.
With global energy markets currently under pressure from the ongoing Middle East conflict and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, the taskforce’s work is expected to help position Nigeria to capitalise on any rebound in demand while building greater resilience against external shocks.
The composition of the taskforce—featuring seasoned bankers, industry veterans, and reform-minded professionals—signals the administration’s intent to pursue market-oriented, investor-friendly, and technically robust solutions to longstanding sector problems.
