President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has announced names of Heineken Lokpobiri as Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, and Ekperikpe Ekpo appointed as the Minister of State for Gas Resources.
Heineken Lokpobiri who hails from Bayelsa State is a legal practitioner and politician.
He used to be the Nigerian Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development under former President Muhammadu Buhari. In 2011, he became a Senator of the Federal Republic. On 29 May 2011, he was appointed Chairman of the Committee on Water Resources and a member of the Committee on Solid Minerals.
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As Minister, Lokpobiri is expected to resolve challenges affecting the oil sector, especially the issues of crude oil theft, lack of oil investments and further development of Nigeria’s oil assets to increase revenues from the oil sector.
Ekperikpe Ekpo is from Akwa Ibom State and was a member of the Federal House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011. He is a former Senatorial seat candidate and a career politician.
He is the Director-General of the Akwa Ibom Democratic Forum (ADF). He is popular with grassroots politics in his home state and an active member of the All-Progressives Congress (APC).
As Minister, Ekpo will be working to implement the policies passed by the Tinubu administration that are geared towards making Nigeria a gas-based country, by promoting industrialization, power generation and distribution, clean cooking, and auto-use that are reliant on gas.
By Ajibola Adedoye