NNPC outlines critical factors for employment, promotion

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has highlighted the critical factors for employment and career progression in the corporation.

The NNPC, in a statement on Sunday night, cited the recently concluded graduate trainee employment process and the top management promotion exercise it executed this year.

The national oil company said, “Unblemished academic competence, logical thinking, ability to engage meaningfully in problem solving, in addition to federal character, are key to becoming an employee of the corporation.

“To progress in the management cadre, professional competence, accountability and transparency as well as ensuring national spread in top management positions are critical factors that are not negotiable.”

The NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr Kennie Obateru, said the basic academic requirement for the newly employed graduate trainees in the corporation was a minimum of a second-class upper division, or an upper credit for Higher National Diploma certificate holders.

He said a candidate holding a second class lower division degree or an HND Lower Credit Diploma holder must also have acquired a Master’s degree in a relevant field.

He said that was applicable in the last recruitment exercise where qualified applicants undertook computer-based test conducted by a neutral national examinations body.

Obateru said the best performers were further taken through a formal interview session to ensure their suitability.

He said the end product of the rigorous exercise was the new set of employees who had shown a lot of promise since the beginning of the onboarding programme which started earlier this month.

According to him, 1,050 graduate trainees were recently recruited by the NNPC and assumed duty virtually on May 4, 2020, due to the lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

Obateru said professional competence, adherence to the principle of transparency and accountability informed the recent top management appointment executed in the first week of March this year.

He added that the principle of federal character was also a factor in the progression of the newly appointees.

He said many top management officers of the corporation were moved to new positions while some were promoted based on their verifiable track records of performance.

He said topping the list of the changes was the re-deployment of the erstwhile Chief Operating Officer, Upstream, Mr.Roland Ewubare, to the Ventures and Business Development Directorate as COO.

According to him, under the arrangement, Ewubare got an additional responsibility of business development, apart from managing the group’s ventures.  

Obateru said Ewubare would bring his competence to bear “in the onerous task of laying the groundwork for the corporation to take up new business opportunities and challenges thrown up by the COVID-19 impasse.”

He said the new position would also see Ewubare traversing downstream, midstream and upstream sectors to develop new ventures.

Prior to his promotion as COO, Upstream, Ewubare was the Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services between August 2017 and July 2019.

 
He is from the South South region of the country.

Obateru said Ewubare’s position as COO Upstream was taken over by Mr Adeyemi Adetunji, a former COO in charge of the downstream directorate.

According to the statement, a first-class Mechanical Engineering graduate of the University of Lagos, Adeyemi started his over 30 years’ career as a maintenance engineer and later a project engineer in Lever Brothers Nigeria Limited.

He later joined Accenture, a management consultancy firm, where he rose to become a partner, providing advisory services on a wide range of subjects for over 20 years.

He joined NNPC in January 2011 as the General Manager, Transformation Office – leading a team of NNPC and international consultants to implement the corporation’s earlier developed corporate vision and strategic plans.

He is from the South West of the country.

Obateru said Ms. Lawrencia Ndupu, who is from the South-East, was redeployed to the downstream directorate. 

According to the statement, Mr Bala Wunti, the erstwhile Managing Director of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, was appointed as the new GGM of NAPIMS.

Wunti, who hails from the North East, was described as the initiator of ‘Operation White,’ a system put in place to promote transparency and accountability in the distribution of petroleum products across the country.