Nigeria's president reshuffles state oil firm and replaces oil minister as boss

President Muhammadu Buhari has replaced Nigeria’s oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu as the group managing director for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

A move that is seen as part of a wider overhaul in the country’s state oil firm.

Kachikwu will however will remain as chairman of the board.

Until his appointment as Minister of State for Petroleum resources in 2015, Kachikwu was the executive Vice Chairman and General Counsel of Exxon Mobil Africa.

The NNPC has been long seen as a corruption infested institution that was running at a loss for many years, yet the Buhari-led administration says it will transform it into a profitable enterprise.

Oil accounts for 70 percent of Nigeria’s revenues but the country has been hard hit by the fall in global crude prices, lowering production and causing the worst economic crisis in the country in the last 10 years.