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Every generation has the potential to produce heroes and leaders, who will cast much-needed light towards the end of each dark tunnel.

Engineer Lawal Yar’Adua, the Acting Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) seems to be one of those torchbearers who can illuminate the path of NNPC and the dark alleys of Corporate Nigeria.

Since assuming office as the Acting GMD, of NNPC, Yar’Adua has proved himself to be a man who lives up to his words. He’s bold, assertive, committed and passionate about his job and the industry, which he knows like the palm of his hand.

Only weeks after his appointment Yar’Adua stunned the Nigerian people and the international community with his boldness. The NNPC's new henchman, like a gladiator, entered the coliseum and looked the tiger in the eye without fear and informed the Nigerian Senate in a public hearing that there were immense irregularities in the way Kaduna and Port Harcourt Refineries were sold.

Yar’Adua is a man who makes good on his words. He breeds ideas and gives them legs to translate his ideas into policies. In a chat with our publisher, Sunny Lawrence-Oputa, on October 27^th 2007, at the All Niger Delta Peoples Conference in Houston, Yar’Adua said:

"NNPC should be commercialized in order to become more effective. NPDC should also go to the capital market to become more functional and profit oriented. NPDC was fashioned after Petrobras so taking it to the capital market is the right way to proceed in order to ensure performance improvement."

Barely, a month after our interview with the NNPC honcho, the Federal Government of Nigeria announced a new oil and gas policy. Speaking to the board of directors of the First Bank of Nigeria Plc led by its chairman Alhaji Ummaru Mutallab, who came to see him in Abuja, The GMD made this remark:

“I believe the purpose of the new policy is in line with government’s desire to make the NNPC function purely as a profit oriented, commercial, and duly capitalized limited liability Company with the ability to raise funds for its projects and operations just like its peers around the world.”

Abubakar Yar’Adua is not only passionate in salvaging an anemic NNPC, which has for long been over polarized and politicized. He’s seriously contributing towards jump- starting a vibrant Nigerian economy.

Information has it that shortly after his appointment as GMD of NNPC, Yar’Adua, while speaking to a group of experts about his commitment towards the survival of the oil-sector said, “I could not stand and watch the sector I have used all my professional career to build go down the drain: Even if it will take the last drop of my blood, I must ensure that I leave behind a legacy of building a feasible and sustained oil sector for my country. To me, this is a matter of priority and there’s no going back, it is a mission that must be accomplished by the grace of God.”

Yar’Adua does not play a hard to reach god. He’s simple, considerate and tolerant. For sure, the likes of Abubakar Yar’Adua are rare. Yar’Adua is not only transforming the Nigerian oil sector, he’s innovatively reconstructing the face of Corporate Africa with boldness.

Energy and Corporate Africa, has chosen this leader, communicator, expert and change agent as one of the new faces of our Profiles on Parade.

Click here for our interview with Abubakar Lawal Yar’Adua, Engineer and GMD of NNPC.