One of the few senior officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from the south-south region, Mr. Roland Ewubare, the Chief Operating Officer, Ventures and Business Development, Friday, resigned his appointment from the corporation.
According to a source at the NNPC, Ewubare tendered his resignation on Thursday, after the launch of the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano pipeline.
However, the source said the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, had been unable to brief President Muhammadu Buhari on his resignation.
According to the source, Kyari is not sure if Buhari would approve of his resignation, especially as his tenure is expected to elapse by this year.
The source said Ewubare was scheduled to be disengaged along with some senior NNPC officials in 2019, after the retirement of the immediate past Group Managing Director of the NNPC, late Dr. Maikanti Baru, but because of his closeness with Kyari, he escaped the sack.
The source added that his resignation might be as a result of the fact that it was part of the agreement reached in 2019,that he would resign honourably at the end of his five-year tenure.
However, reports have quoted Ewubare as saying that he had to resign so as to reunite with his family in the United States.
Ewubare was appointed Chief Operating Officer (COO) Ventures & Business Development of the NNPC in March 2020. Prior to that, he was COO, Upstream, a position he held from June 2019 to March 2020.
He was also former General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services, the investment subsidiary of the NNPC, and he held the post between August 2017 and July 2019.
