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Weekly UpdatesAn ex-oil minister, diplomat and former OPEC secretary-general, Lukman now is the most powerful man in the petroleum sector next to President Yar'Adua. After having served as "honourary adviser" since 2007, in December 2008 he was elevated to the post of full minister of petroleum.
Lukman has been a founder and non-executive chairman of Afren, a London-listed petroleum E&P company active in Nigeria, Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon, Congo (Brazzaville) and Angola.
Lukman was made top energy adviser to President Obasanjo in June 1999. Until end-2000, he was also OPEC secretary general. He resigned in October 2003 because of a dispute with the then NNPC group managing director Dr. Jackson Gaius-Obaseki as the latter had sacked 28 company directors in August of that year without consulting him. Now Gaius-Obaseki is the chairman of Brass LNG Ltd which is having a venture on Brass island to export LNG (see gmt7NigrGasExpAug17-09).
However, the main reason for Lukman's quitting in 2003 was his objection to Obasanjo's occasionally corrupt practices and lack of transparency in the country's petroleum industry. (See Obasanjo's profile in omt8NigrWhoAug22-05).
Lukman is a Muslim, born in February 1938 at Zaria in the northern state of Kaduna. He received higher education in mining at the University of London from 1959 to 1962. He got a higher degree as a mining engineer from the University of Mining and Metallurgy in L[eth]ber, Austria, in 1968.
In the regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Lukman served as minister of mines, power and steel from 1984 to 1985. In February 1986, he was made petroleum minister and held that post until February 1990. From 1986 he served eight consecutive terms as OPEC president.
In March 1990 Lukman became foreign minister. He lost that post after Babangida quit in 1993. But Lukman has since kept close to Babangida, who remains a powerful figure in the background and who has long been a source of support for Obasanjo. It is said that even President Yar'Adua depends to some extent on support from Babangida.
Lukman was elected as OPEC secretary-general on Nov. 22, 1994. He succeeded Dr. Subroto of Indonesia, whose three-year term had ended on June 30 of that year. Lukman was a compromise figure for that post, between candidates from Iran and Venezuela. Lukman was re-elected to a second term as OPEC secretary-general in 1997.
Later Lukman became a key force behind a crude oil price defence deal reached by Iran and Saudi Arabia in early 1999. That led to the March 1999 accord between OPEC and four non-OPEC states on crude oil production cuts which, eventually, helped world crude oil prices to rise way above a $9/b reached in late 1998. Lukman remains an influential figure in Nigeria, in OPEC circles and internationally.
FEED