President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of the Executive Vice Chairman of ExxonMobil Africa, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, to head Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Kachikwu was expected to take over from Joseph Darwa at the NNPC headquarters in Abuja around 3:00 pm Nigerian time.
The NNPC is the state-run oil company which oversees Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. Its board is statutorily headed by the minister of petroleum resources.
The corporation regulates the oil and gas sector, and also operates as a joint venture partner representing the government in deals with oil multinationals.
The NNPC has in recent years been accused of large scale corruption, the latest being the alleged disappearance of $20 billion oil money.
An independent audit ordered by the Nigerian government in 2014 concluded that the corporation has an outstanding $1.48 billion it should pay to the government.