BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Chief Festus Remilekun Ayodele Marinho, Knight of St. Sylvester, the Esere of Uvwie, the Aro Olofin of Ijebu-Ife, Fellow of the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society of Nigeria, is the retired pioneer and unprecedented two times Managing (now Group Managing) Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from 1977 to 1980 and then 1984 to 1985, was born on the 30th December 1934 in Ijebu-Ode.
Chief Marinho grew up, partly in the “Brazilian Quarters” of Lagos Island and attended St. Gregory”s College Obalende, Lagos. He matriculated into the then University College, Ibadan in 1956, became a ’College Scholar’ in 1957 and graduated BSc Special Honours in Physics in 1960. He joined the Public Service as the nation’s second Oil Technologist-in- Training, ever, and proceeded immediately to the Imperial College, London for post-graduate studies in Petroleum Reservoir Engineering from 1960-61. Thereafter, he undertook various practical attachments with International Petroleum and Service Companies as well as in established and reputed Oil Conservation Boards all over the world. Throughout his career, he undertook further training at various Technology and Management Institutions. He visited more than 35 countries in all the continents, attending conferences, seminars, OPEC meetings and other official assignments.

His public service story started fifty years ago, in June 1960 (just before Nigeria’s Independence) at the age of 25. He was one of the three graduates in the five-man team that started the then Hydrocarbon Unit in the Ministry of Mines and Lagos Affairs. Chief F.R.A. Marinho rose rapidly to become, in 1971, the first Deputy Director of Nigeria’s just maturing Ministry of Petroleum Resources, and then the first and only counterpart Director of Petroleum Resources, ever, from 1975-77. He led the technical team that started up the Nigerian National Oil Corporation (the precursor of the NNPC) as its first Manager-in-Charge from 1973-75. He was appointed the Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation at its inauguration on April 1st 1977.
He had been at the vanguard of the oil industry’s development and growth in Nigeria from its earliest dawn and effectively focused the NNPC as an instrument for the achievement of Government policies. He spear-headed the drafting of Nigeria’s most important Petroleum Laws and Regulations that have existed without major amendments for more than four decades; managed the planning and construction of three refineries within a decade; the construction of an extensive network of products and crude pipelines and petroleum storage depots countrywide within the same time frame; he broke the monopoly of the major multinational products’ marketers in the domestic products’ market by throwing the field open to independent indigenous marketers’; drove Nigeria’s aspirations for Nigerianisation, domestication of technical expertise; his relentless effort to commercial our natural gas resulted in the construction of base-load pipelines to the west and north of Nigeria and set the foundation for the now thriving Natural gas, liquids and liquefied, middle stream activities. He contributed significantly to the nation’s interaction with OPEC and to the insurance of Nigeria’s continued relevance, nationally and internationally.
His activities were briefly interrupted by the ‘N2.8billion ‘Oil-gate saga’, with his redeployment and subsequently re-instated as a second time MD of the NNPC, after the ‘hue and cry’ had been established to be a ‘hoax’ by the Justice Irikefe Judicial Tribunal of Inquiry.

Post NNPC, Chief Marinho has played further background roles in the Oil Industry, including serving as Alternate Chairman of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited and the Bonny Gas Transport Company Ltd. He was one time director of Nigerian Agip Oil Company and Agip Natural Energy Resources Co and currently a Director of NLPC Pension Fund Administrator
He is the recipient of many religious, traditional and professional awards including a Papal Knighthood, medals and recognition by, among others, the Society of Petroleum Engineers, the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, the Petroleum Training Institute, Warri and the Nigerian Gas Association. He was the 1985 University of Ibadan Alumni Lecturer.

He is a committed Catholic and was and still belongs to many societies and organisations in the church. He is married to Yeye Aro Olofin Yetunde Oreoluwa Marinho and they have five children and ten grandchildren.