By Eric Elezuo
From his comfort zone, after meritoriously guiding the broad brand, Guaranty Trust Bank, to a height high enough to draw international comparisons in quality and service delivery, co-founder, Mr. Fola Adeola, attracted attention, bagging a presidential appointment as the Head of a nine-member Presidential Petroleum Reform and Value Optimization Task Force.
The appointment, approved on Friday by President Bola Tinubu, places a mandate on Adeola and his team to design and coordinate the next phase of structural reforms in Nigeria’s petroleum sector.
The appointment was announced in a statement by presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga as follows:
PRESIDENT TINUBU ESTABLISHES TASK FORCE ON PRESIDENTIAL PETROLEUM REFORM & VALUE OPTIMISATION
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, has approved the establishment of a Presidential Petroleum Reform & Value Optimisation Taskforce to design and sequence the next phase of structural reforms in Nigeria’s petroleum sector.
Mr Fola Adeola, co-founder of Guaranty Trust Bank and founder and chairman of the Fate Foundation, is the Task Force’s chairman. As chairman, he will coordinate the group’s work and ensure the timely delivery of its mandate.
Other members of the Taskforce are: Ademola Adeyemi-Bero, Osagie Okunbor, Abubakar Suleiman, Adaeze Aguele, Farouk Gumel, Phillipa Osakwe-Okoye and Seyi Bella.
Mofoluwasho Fadayomi will serve as secretary.
As constituted, the Taskforce is a time-bound, high-level executive working group tasked with producing execution-ready reform blueprints that will consolidate ongoing reforms, unlock capital within the petroleum sector, and strengthen Nigeria’s position as a leading global energy investment destination.
The initiative reflects the President’s commitment to transforming Nigeria’s petroleum industry into a more competitive, transparent, and value-maximising sector capable of driving long-term economic growth, macroeconomic resilience, and industrial development.
It will operate as a technical reform body rather than a representative committee, engaging industry operators, regulators, investors, and civil society as consultees while focusing on actionable policy design and implementation strategies.
The Taskforce will report directly to the President and provide monthly progress memoranda. An interim report will be submitted after three months, while the final outputs are expected within six months of inauguration.
President Tinubu expects the Task Force to deliver three major reform blueprints.
One of the deliverables is the Implementation Toolkit for Immediate Structural Fixes – including draft legislative amendments, executive instruments, and institutional restructuring proposals.
The second deliverable is the Capital & Liquidity Acceleration Blueprint, aimed at unlocking $5–10 billion in sectoral liquidity while safeguarding Nigeria’s sovereign interests.
The third blueprint will focus on the National Energy Transformation Strategy – a ten-year roadmap with measurable targets for production, foreign exchange earnings, GDP contribution, and cost competitiveness.
President Tinubu has directed all Ministries, Departments, Agencies, regulators, and relevant institutions to provide full technical support to the Taskforce and to submit inventories of ongoing initiatives to ensure alignment with the emerging reform framework.
In furtherance of this directive, President Tinubu has also directed all existing committees, teams, and working groups established under various reform initiatives within the sector to align their activities, reporting structures, and work programmes with the new Task Force.
The streamlining will ensure coordination, avoid duplication of mandates, and provide institutional clarity, thereby ensuring coherence in the petroleum sector reform architecture.
The President has also directed that all relevant documentation, institutional knowledge, and ongoing workstreams should be made available to the Taskforce to support the development and implementation of its comprehensive reform framework.
The creation of the Taskforce represents a strategic presidential instrument to accelerate petroleum sector reforms, strengthen governance architecture, optimise national energy assets, and position Nigeria’s petroleum resources as a foundation for sustainable economic transformation.
The Taskforce will automatically dissolve upon submission and acceptance of its final report.
Fola chairs the committee alongside reputable industry and financial sector experts, including Ademola Adeyemi-Bero, Osagie Okunbor, Abubakar Suleiman, Adaeze Aguele, Farouk Gumel, Phillipa Osakwe-Okoye, and Seyi Bella with Mofoluwasho Fadayomi will serve as secretary.
President Tinubu tasked the committee with producing execution-ready reform blueprints that will consolidate ongoing reforms, unlock capital within the petroleum sector, and strengthen Nigeria’s position as a leading global energy investment destination.
The committee’s establishment comes after President Tinubu announced Presidential Executive Order 09 on February 13, 2026, that mandates direct remittance of all government petroleum revenue to the federation account.
THE CAREER TRAJECTORY OF FOLA ADEOLA
Beyond being a financial wizard, Adeola has once tried his hands in politics, aiming for the number position of the Nigerian nation as the vice president. That was when ran with the present National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu under the umbrella of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
Born on January 10, 1954, Adeola is an alumnus of Methodist Boys High School, Lagos, and Yaba College of Technology, where he obtained a Diploma in Accounting in 1975.
He became a Chartered Accountant in 1980 following his training with Deloitte, Haskins and Sells and D.O. Dafinone & Company (both Chartered Accountants). Over the years he has received professional development training at Harvard Business School, INSEAD, and the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland.
In 1999, he completed a one-year sabbatical at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru, Jos, Nigeria, where he carried out research on economic development and job creation policies.
Adeola co-founded one of Nigeria’s biggest banks, now a holding company, the Guaranty Trust Holding Company, owner of Guaranty Trust Bank, together with Tayo Aderinokun in 1990. He served as its Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director from inception until 2002.
He is also the founder of FATE Foundation and chairman of Main One, Nigeria’s leading telecom company.
In the public sector, Fola served as the past board chairman of the National Pension Commission from December 2004 to June 2006. He also at one time chaired the Lagos State Disaster Relief Committee.
In 2009, he won Banker of the Decade award by the Vanguard Newspaper group. Other awards trailing the accomplished bank include Distinguished Famous Alumni award by Yaba Tech Zik Leadership in 2003, and This Day Awards 2011 – Change Makers in Social Entrepreneurship.
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