As part of efforts to strengthen Imo State’s maximisation of petroleum resources management as a contributor to the state’s economic development, Governor Hope Uzodinma has appointed an oil industry expert, Mrs Chioma Nonyerem Njoku as Senior Special Assistant Adviser on Petroleum.
She is also to serve as the Secretary of the Bureau of Oil and Gas Matters.
Before her appointment, Mrs Njoku had held several positions at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) including as Acting Director of Petroleum Resources. She brings to bear several years of experience of working in the oil sector.
Her appointment is one that has been hailed by industry and subject matter experts as a step in the right direction by the Imo State government.
Mrs Njoku boasts a solid educational background that spans Corona School, British–American International School and Mary Wood Grammar School, Lagos, Nigeria. Thereafter, she went on to garner academic and professional qualifications in Accountancy at the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu and certification by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and the Chartered Institute of Taxation. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and member of various professional associations.
Furthermore, she has attended various Executive Management Courses including the prestigious Harvard Business School program for Leadership and General Management.
Equipped with a high level of integrity, Mrs Njoku has over 35 years of Oil and Gas industry experience, spanning various technical and corporate sections in the NNPC and DPR, Nigeria’s regulatory agency for the Oil and Gas Industry. She previously served as Head, Finance and Accounts at the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) where her responsibilities included revenue accounting during the Oil bloc bid rounds.
At various times during her career, she had superintending responsibilities in the three largest Upstream/Downstream Oil and Gas Operations Zones (Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt). She retired as a Deputy Director/Zonal Operations Controller, South-South Zone of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), with the responsibility of coordinating regulatory compliance activities.
She represented the DPR in various inter-agency consultative organizations (The Presidency, National Assembly, Fed. Min of Finance, Fed Ministrye of Petroleum Resources, Petroleum Technology Development Fund, Petroleum Equalisation Fund, Nigeria Content Development Management Board, NDDC, PPPRA) as well as the Oil Producers Trade Association (OPTA) comprising Chief Executives, and in the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN), an association of Nigerian Indigenous Technical Oil Field Service Companies.
In the public sector, Mrs Njoku served as Senior Technical Assistant to the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources and Nigeria’s OPEC Governor, as well as the Oil and Gas Industry Desk Representative at the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) One Stop Investment Centre (OSIC), with the responsibility of Oil and Gas Investment and Trade Facilitation.
She represented the Department in review committees on Voluntary Principles proposals by the European Union and the United States of America.
The new appointee, who is married with children, spends her time mentoring the youth and women through participation in community-based activities and advocacy.