The head of crude oil marketing, Gbenga Olu Komolafe, at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC) was re-assigned on Friday as the new group manager of special duties, a statement from NNPC said.
His position has been temporarily filled by Musa Yola Usman. Komolafe was in charge of NNPC's oil sales. The company receives about half, or 1 million barrels per day, of the country's total production out of which 445,000 bpd is allocated to Nigeria's refineries.
The move comes two days after the top layer of NNPC management, eight executive directors, were dismissed.
A former lawyer at ExxonMobil, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, was appointed the new head of the NNPC by President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday.
Buhari is keen to root out corruption and plug massive revenue leaks, starting with a restructuring of the state-owned behemoth. He said about 250,000 bpd of oil was being stolen and that his government was aiming to recover an estimated $150 billion in stolen funds with U.S. assistance.
Nigeria's oil industry is riddled with graft, with tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue either grossly mismanaged or unaccounted for.
A report by the Natural Resource Governance Institute, following an in-depth investigation, said on Tuesday that how NNPC conducts its oil sales should be overhauled.
It said the allocation to the country's neglected refineries had become a "nexus of waste and revenue loss" and crude contracts were signed mostly with unqualified intermediaries receiving commissions for little or no added value.
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