Our advisory-board members are available for consultation on research projects in their respective areas of expertise.
Dr. Arinze Agbim is a UCL-trained chemical engineer with in-depth knowledge of the oil and gas industry both within and outside Nigeria.
He retired from Mobil Producing Nigeria (ExxonMobil’s Nigerian upstream affiliate) in 1996 as an Executive Director after twenty-five years of service. Between 1996 and 2001 he worked as an energy specialist and consultant for the World Bank in Washington, DC. Since returning to Nigeria in 2001, he has consulted on energy issues for several companies and governmental agencies. He currently teaches petroleum economics on a part-time basis at the University of Lagos.
Dr. Agbim strongly believes in education and knowledge acquisition as a means of alleviating poverty and has contributed to several public discussions on the subject.
‘Gbite Adeniji is an energy and natural resources practitioner and the team-leader at the specialist practice, ADVISORY (a legal consultancy). ‘Gbite has advised the developers of headline projects such as the West African Gas Pipeline Project, the Amukpe Crude Oil Pipeline, the Ovade – Ogharefe Gas Processing Plant, the Egbaoma Gas Plant, the Qua Iboe Power Plant and, the Yellowstone Power Project. He is currently advising developers of other gas pipeline, gas processing, fertilizer, methanol and power projects.
Gbite was a Senior Consultant at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. where he assisted with the development of a Strategic Gas Plan for Nigeria. He is widely recognized as the architect of the emerging legal, regulatory, policy and commercial framework of the Nigerian gas and mining sectors. He was the legal consultant to the Nigerian government vis a vis the development of the Nigerian Gas Masterplan, an initiative for the development of the domestic gas sector in Nigeria. In this regard, he moderated both government and industry and prepared regulatory instruments such as the National Gas Policy document, the Downstream Gas Bill, the National Domestic Gas Supply and Pricing Policy and the National Domestic Gas Supply and Pricing Regulations. He also assisted with the development of the commercial framework for wholesale gas supply to domestic gas utilization projects. He advised on the establishment of the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria, led the drafting of the model Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement, Escrow Agreement and Gas Transmission Agreement for wholesale gas transactions in the Nigerian domestic gas sector, assisted with the negotiations for the first World Bank Partial Risk (“PRG”) Guarantee program for Nigeria and prepared related documentation for the application of the PRG for gas supply to state-owned power plants.
He teaches and speaks regularly on issues relating to energy, natural resources, and infrastructure law & policy and has been recognized in the Expert Guides to the World’s Leading Lawyers and in Who’s Who of Business Lawyers as one of the World’s leading Oil and Gas lawyers and as one of the World’s leading mining lawyers.
Dr Femi Olugbile is currently the MD/CEO of SYNTHESIZ CONSULTS, a consultancy and training firm offering services to individuals, private organizations, and government on health policy, health services development and health management. He is also part of a private psychiatric practice.
Previously, he was the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health and the Chief Medical Director of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (2000-2010).
Dr. Olugbile started one of the first General Hospital-based Psychiatric units in Nigeria in the old General Hospital, Ikeja, Lagos, n 1985; the department is now a University Department of Psychiatry. He was a pioneer of medical journalism in the field of mental mealth in Nigeria. He has published in several local & international journals, presented papers at national and international conferences, and is the author of six books.
Melvin D. Ayogu is concurrently Director of the Executive MBA program and a Visiting Professor of Economics at the School of Business Administration, American University of Sharjah. He is also a Fellow at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) in Johannesburg, South Africa, and an Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Previously, he was a Fellow, Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings Institution, Washington DC. His work focuses on governance, infrastructure, and economic development.
Melvin was Director, Global Leadership Centre at Standard Bank Group South Africa. Previously Dean Faculty of Commerce, University of Cape Town, Director, School of Economics and Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town. He was also a Rhodes Visiting African Scholar to Oxford University in 1995, a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for International Development, and Senior Rockefeller Humanities Institute Fellow at Harvard University in 2000. Dr. Ayogu is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Financial Services, London.
Tahirou Abdoulaye is an Agricultural Economist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. He is based in Ibadan, Nigeria.
His academic qualifications include a B.Sc. in economics (University of Niamey, Niger); and M.Sc. and Ph.D. in agricultural economics (Purdue University, USA). He has been involved in evaluation and impact assessment of several projects mainly in West Africa.
He has produced papers on impact assessment of research activities in several African countries including Niger, Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, and Benin. His research work covers a wide range of rural economic issues including seed systems, farm-level efficiency and also technology evaluation and transfer. His more recent research interest focuses on innovation systems and how they can help increase technology uptake by small farmers.
Prior to joining IITA in 2007, he was a research fellow with JIRCAS (2005─2006), Scientist at INRAN (2004─2005), graduate research assistant and postdoctoral research associate at Purdue University (1997─2003) and Economist at INRAN (1989─1993, 1994─1996).
Mr Femi Bajomo spent 25 years with the Shell Group in Nigeria, London, Namibia and the Netherlands. In Namibia, he led a team to pioneer a Floating LNG (FLNG) development for the kudu gas field. He was the Vice President, BG Nigeria from 2005 to September 2010, and was on the Board of Directors of BG Nigeria and Olokola LNG (OKLNG) project. He was also part of the pioneering team for OKLNG. He also pioneered the development of Nigeria’s Gas Master Plan, providing the Terms of Reference to NNPC to kickstart it.
Mr Femi was regional head and head of business development of Afren Plc from 2010 to 2011. He was seconded to First Hydrocarbon Nigeria (FHN) as Chief Operating Officer and board member in 2011 and is currently the Managing Director of FHN.
Okey Okuzu is an accomplished healthcare visionary and entrepreneur able to drive improved healthcare delivery to underserved markets and populations through emerging technologies. Okey’s professional career spans over twenty years in leading financial and healthcare companies including JP Morgan Chase, Pfizer and Novartis. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from University of Lagos and an MBA in Finance and Strategy from Columbia Business School, New York. Okey currently serves as the President of Oando Foundation USA, an independent charity formed by Oando PLC (Nigeria’s Largest Indigenous Oil Company)