Barrister Dan Esueme Kikile has emerged as the new Manager, Corporate Communications Department (CCD), Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
The MCDMB which has its corporate headquarters in the Bayelsa State capital, Yenagoa has a mandate to reduce capital flight especially in the maritime sector of the economy as well as the oil and gas industry to the barest minimum while escalating the involvement of qualified Nigerians in the provision of services hitherto the exclusive preserve of foreigners and foreign companies.
Kikile who has a vast experience in the public and private sectors was prior to his appointment, Manager, Capacity Building, Services Utilization and Research and Development Monitoring in the Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate (MED) in NCDMB.
The Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NCDMB, Engr. Simbi Wabote who disclosed this in a memo addressed to the staff of the board enjoined them to please congratulate him and accord him the needed co-operation as he assume the new responsibilities.
According to the memo which was obtained by Maritime Bits, the NCDMB helmsman expressed hope that the appointment would elicit greater commitment towards actualizing what he called the “board’s 10 year strategic roadmap and mandate”.
Kikile who has a master’s degree (LL.M) in Energy Law and Policy Development from the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP), University of Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom has over 20 years’ experience spanning the public sector; international development work; legal practice and law office management; non-governmental organization work; community service and the oil and gas sectors of the economy.
He started his career as a lawyer with several law firms and then moved on to function as a National Project Officer in charge of the Bayelsa Expenditure and Income Transparency Initiative (BEITI), a project of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The project which was supported and funded by the European Union (EU) and the Government of the Netherland was expected to create a transparent governance process through more accountability of government income and expenditure.
Prior to his work with the UNODC, he had a stint with the Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA), an agency of the Federal Government with mandate to provide key infrastructure for communities around Nigeria’s international borders.
Apart from being the Principal Legal Officer and Special Assistant to the Executive Secretary of BCDA, he also served as a member of the Board of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) between 2005 and 2007. Between 2004 and 2014, he was the Managing Partner of Ogbotobo and Kikile (Law Partners), which led the Leadership and Governance Initiative which was responsible for the annual public forum with distinguished Nigerians invited to speak on topical national issues.
In all these roles, his focus was primarily on developing people and ensuring the enhancement of organizational efficiency amongst functional teams. He joined the Board in April, 2014 and left briefly on sabbatical between May 2015 and February 2016 to serve as the Commissioner for Information of Bayelsa State. He was saddled with the responsibility of managing the media and public image of Bayelsa State government during that period. On his return to NCDMB, he was involved in monitoring and evaluation of training and other capacity building initiatives in the Nigerian oil and gas industry; ensuring the utilization of Nigerian goods, services and personnel in the oil and gas industry, where such capacities exist in-country; and ensuring a functional relationship between the oil and gas industry and academia such as universities, research institutes, and other research centres to develop new products, or improve processes that is deployed in the oil and gas industry. To date, through his work with his team, over 1300 Nigerians have been trained in different fields in the oil and gas industry, over $81 million retained in research funds deployed to local universities and other research centres for various research activities in the oil and gas industry and the Board have tracked and ensured the retention over $4 billion in procurement and services utilized in-country by the oil and gas industry. These achievements have in no small measure helped in increasing benefits of the oil and gas industry to Nigeria and Nigerian service companies and personnel. Over the years his work in both the public and private sectors, he acquired significant knowledge and experience in leadership, strategic communication and transformational process that is relevant and useful to both private businesses and government sectors.
