The Chairman of Geometric Power Limited and former Nigerian Minister of Power, Professor Barth Nnaji, has been confirmed as the Special Guest of Honour at the upcoming SUPERNEWS National Conference and 10th Anniversary celebration, reports ITREALMS.
The high-level gathering will be chaired by the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Insurance Plc, Dr. Jeff Duru, while the Group Managing Director/CEO of Royal Exchange Plc, Mrs. Idu Okeahialam, is billed to deliver the foundational keynote paper.
This year’s conference is anchored on the strategic theme: "Local Content & Digitisation: Building Synergy Between Oil & Gas and Insurance Sectors for Inclusive Growth."
According to the Publisher of SUPERNEWS Nigeria, Ngozi Onyeakusi, the choice of the 2026 theme was born out of an urgent quest to provide actionable insights on how the insurance and energy sectors can leverage cutting-edge digital technologies to boost collaboration.
The dialogue is engineered to help operators surmount persistent structural challenges associated with implementing the statutory provisions of Sections 49 and 50 of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act.
For context, Sections 49 and 50 of the NOGICD Act mandate that all operators engaged in any form of project or activity within the Nigerian oil and gas industry must insure all insurable business risks with an insurance company through a registered domestic insurance broker.
The Act strictly stipulates that where an operator seeks to place an insurable risk offshore, a formal, written approval from the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) must first be sought and obtained.
Crucially, NAICOM must independently verify and determine that local domestic capacity has been completely exhausted before granting such an offshore waiver.
In a deliberate bid to smoothen implementation and drive institutional compliance, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) collaborated with NAICOM in 2022 to launch joint operational guidelines.
These regulatory guidelines were expected to eliminate existing loopholes that historically hindered the enforcement of Sections 49 and 50.
Despite these regulatory interventions, baseline industry research reveals that Nigerian underwriting firms have continuously battled severe headwinds, ranging from capital inadequacy to limited technical capacity to absorb massive energy risks.
However, market dynamics are shifting rapidly. With the enactment of the landmark Nigeria Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA) 2025, the domestic insurance ecosystem has been structurally repositioned for global competitiveness.
The ongoing sector-wide recapitalization exercise triggered by the 2025 Act is projected to pave the way for bigger, capitalized, and technologically advanced insurance institutions capable of retaining heavy oil and gas assets locally.
Confirming his high-level attendance at the event, the Commissioner for Insurance and Chief Executive of NAICOM, Mr. Olusegun Ayo Omosehin, will lead an array of key sector regulators, energy stakeholders, civil society organizations, financial analysts, the media, and academia to dissect the new digital frontier of local content.
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