By Joe Ephraim, Calabàr
A group, the National Patriotic Front for Tinubu (NPFFT), has cried foul over the alleged exclusion of Cross River State indigenes from the 2026 promotion exercise of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
The group alleged that none of the Cross River indigenes among the commission’s staff was promoted despite the promotion of 106 officers across four management cadres.
The cadres, according to NPFFT, covered promotions from Manager to Senior Manager, Senior Manager to Assistant Director, Assistant Director to Deputy Director and Deputy Director to Director.
In a statement signed by its Director-General, Castro Ezama, the group claimed that Cross River indigenes were represented at the affected levels but none made the final list.
It further alleged that other states in the South-South recorded successful candidates, citing eight promotions from Rivers State, not less than six each from Edo and Delta states, and three each from Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom states.
The group, however, said it was not demanding preferential treatment for Cross River indigenes, stressing that promotion should be based on eligibility, competence, performance, experience and approved assessment criteria.
According to NPFFT, the reported outcome raised questions about “equal opportunity, consistency of assessment and compliance with the federal character principle.”
It called on the NUPRC management and Governing Board to conduct an urgent and impartial review of the exercise and publish a state-by-state and cadre-by-cadre breakdown of eligible, assessed and successful officers, subject to privacy requirements.
The group also demanded disclosure of the eligibility requirements, assessment criteria, score weightings, pass marks and moderation procedures applied during the exercise.
It urged the commission to allow affected officers access to their individual results and reasons for the decisions, alongside a fair appeal mechanism.
NPFFT further called on the Federal Character Commission to examine the state-of-origin distribution in the exercise and determine whether applicable federal character requirements and guidelines were observed.
It also appealed to the relevant Senate committees on petroleum resources upstream and gas to request the promotion records and investigate the allegation.
The group said the matter was not an attack on the NUPRC but a demand for transparency, accountability and lawful redress
.
“If the reported figures are inaccurate, NUPRC should publish the correct position. If the figures are accurate but the decisions were justified by consistently applied criteria, the Commission should demonstrate that through an independent review,” it said.
NPFFT urged the Federal Government to ensure that merit, due process and federal character principles were applied transparently in federal institutions.
It also appealed for a supplementary promotion exercise for qualified Cross River indigenes if the review established errors, unequal treatment or procedural failures.
The group urged the affected officers to remain calm and law-abiding while pursuing lawful administrative remedies.
