President Tinubu appoints Verheijen as Special Adviser Energy

Oredola Adeola

President Bola Tinubu has approved the appointment of Mrs. Olu Verheijen, as Special Adviser, Energy in the Presidency.

This was revealed in a statement released by Abiodun Oladunjoye, Director of Information, State House on Thursday, alongside the appointment of other Special Advisers including Mr. Dele Alake (Special Duties, Communications and Strategy), Mr. Yau Darazo, (Political and Intergovernmental Affairs), Mr. Wale Edun, (Special Adviser, Monetary Policies), Mr. Zachaeus Adedeji(Revenue), Mr. Nuhu Ribadu (Security), Mr. John Uwajumogu (Industry, Trade and Investment) and Dr (Mrs.) Salma Anas, (Health).

EnergyDay’s check showed that Mr. Olu Verheijen, holds a BA from Long Island University and master’s in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

She has nearly 20 years’ experience in the gas and renewables sectors across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Until her appointment, she was the founder and Managing Director at Latimer Energy, a consulting firm advising clients on value optimization in the acquisition, development, and management of energy assets.

She was previously, a Partner at Persistent, an early-stage investment firm with a pan-African portfolio of distributed renewables companies, a Deal Lead at Shell and advised on gas commercialization and M&A transactions and worked for Moody’s Investors Service in New York.

Olu is also the Founder/CEO of BFA Foundation which funds scholarships for women and other disadvantaged groups to expand their career advancement opportunities in high-growth sectors, including the energy sector.

She is also an angel investor across various sectors and serves as a Trustee of the Harvard Kennedy School Alumni Association of Nigeria.

Until her appointment as SA Energy to President Tinubu, Verheijen shares the view that Nigeria cannot achieve its desire to achieve the level of poverty reduction witnessed in Asia over the past two decades unless the government demonstrates the political will required to trade short-term political gains for long-term prosperity for all Nigerians.

Now that she is within the corridor of power, EnergyDay expects her to transform her thoughts into actions by galvanising the much-needed political will toward ensuring that Nigeria executes energy and climate policies in alignment with the overall goal of enabling the scale and pace of economic development that will lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty within the next decade.