President Bola Tinubu on Thursday appointed eight persons as special advisers and two women made the list.
Olu Verheijen as Special Adviser on Energy and Salma Ibrahim Anas, special adviser on health.
The other six appointed who are men are
Dele Alake, Special Adviser on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy; Yau Darazo as Special Adviser on Political and Intergovernmental Affairs; Nuhu Ribadu, Special Adviser on Security; Wale Edun as Special Adviser on Monetary Policies; Zacchaeus Adedeji as Special Adviser on Revenue; and John Ugochukwu Uwajumogu, special adviser on industry, trade and investment.
These eight persons are part of the 20 special advisers Tinubu had asked the senate to approve to achieve the goals of his administration in the next four years.
Meet Olu Verheijen, President Tinubu’s Energy Adviser
Verheijen is an energy expert and renewable energy investor with nearly 20 years of experience in the oil, gas, renewables and power sectors across Sub-Saharan Africa. She is the founder and managing director of Latimer Energy, a commercial advisory firm, whose services include advising clients on value optimisation in acquisition, development and management of energy assets.
The energy expert, who has a BA from Long Island University and master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, serves as an advisory council member of the US Millennium Challenge Corporation and also an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Energy for Growth Hub.
Meet Salma Ibrahim Anas
Anas is a public health specialist with over 25 years of experience in health sector development, policy formulation, and strategic development.
She is currently the director of Family Health Services at the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) where she leads important divisions like reproductive health, child health and gender, adolescent, school health and elderly care (GASHE), nutrition and health promotion divisions.
She was a two-time Borno commissioner of health where she led the state during the region’s humanitarian crisis – her excellent performance attracted awards such as the best performing commissioner in the northeast on polio eradication.
Verheijen was formerly a Deal Lead at Shell where she advised on gas commercialisation, merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions valued at over $5 billion. She was a member of the governing board of Shell upstream joint venture.
