Diezani Allison-Madueke Appointed as Oil Minister in Nigeria

Diezani Allison-Madueke was appointed as the Oil Minister of the recently reconstituted cabinet of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. She was assigned to the post by Acting President Goodluck Jonathan.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Female minister directs Nigeria oil overhaul

By Tom Burgis in Lagos
Financial Times
April 7 2010 17:55

Nigeria’s first female oil minister has been in her post barely 24 hours, but already the demands on her allegiances are many and conflicting.

Diezani Allison-Madueke was the surprise choice to take the helm in sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest oil and gas exporter when Goodluck Jonathan, acting president, unveiled his cabinet on Tuesday.

The team has 12 months to make its mark before the next election. The new minister’s principal task is to bring the long-delayed Petroleum Industry Bill – the most ambitious overhaul in the industry’s 50-year history – into law.

At stake are tens of billions of dollars of potential investments, and reforms that could breathe new life into an industry that provides 80 per cent of the government’s income and one in eight barrels of crude that the US imports.

Yet such is the scope for renewed lobbying from foreign companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, and opponents of reform that senior industry figures fear more delays.

“The PIB is definitely unlikely to pass [through the national assembly] in its current form before the elections,” Osten Olorunsola, Shell’s regional vice-president for gas, told the Financial Times. “Not passing anything would magnify the overall level of uncertainty.”

Shell’s competitors suggest the Anglo-Dutch group should be feeling smug. Ms Allison-Madueke is the daughter of a Shell employee and spent some 14 years working for its Nigerian joint venture, rising to become head of external relations.

Some industry groups are said to have lobbied for her appointment, reasoning that her background would make her sympathetic to oil companies’ claims that the bill’s tougher terms would jeopardise $50bn of planned investment.

Yet many of Ms Allison-Madueke’s advisers will argue that the country has made enough concessions to the companies already and the proposed law would simply bring Nigeria’s over-generous terms into line with those of other oil producers.

Mr Jonathan’s cabinet changes owe much to the succession struggle sparked by the prolonged illness of Umaru Yar’Adua, who remains the nominal president despite having been incapacitated since November.

Many Yar’Adua allies have been removed, among them the outgoing oil minister, former Opec boss Rilwanu Lukman, and Mohammed Barkindo, erstwhile head of the national oil company that reformers hope to transform from a byword for patronage to a commercially-driven profit-machine.

Her detractors say the Cambridge-educated Ms Allison-Madueke lacks her predecessor’s clout, noting the limited impact she had in two previous ministerial posts. Critics say that she was promoted because she comes from Mr Jonathan’s home state of Bayelsa, in the heart of the delta.

Some in the delta, where militants have long demanded a greater share of the oil revenues, expect a daughter of the region to look after her own.

Dimieari Von Kemedi, a senior Bayelsa official, said activists would push the new minister to go ahead with a proposal to grant 10 per cent of the net profits of petroleum ventures to the delta’s communities.

Foreign oil groups, seeking to renew leases to prime oil blocks, are locked in tough negotiations. A bidding round for oil assets is planned. Cnooc, a Chinese oil group, is seeking swathes of Nigeria’s crude. From Bayelsa to Beijing, Ms Allison-Madueke’s next moves will be closely watched.