NLNG - The Magazine H2 2010 Edition

VOL 9 NO 3 2010

T H E

M A G A Z I N E

Stars, Leading Lights, Grand Night

Onukaba

Prize for Literature Nominee

Yerima

Irobi

Prize for Literature Nominee

Ibhadode

Prize for Literature Nominee

Prize for Science Winner

I N H O U S E

M A G A Z I N E

O F

N I G E R I A

L N G

L I M I T E D

from the editor-in-chief

Celebrations “To build a nation where peace and justice shall reign”

I

—from the Nigerian national anthem

t is a season of reflections for our dear country as we celebrate Nigeria’s 50th Independence Anniversary. The anniversary comes with different feelings: relics of pride for what used to be perceived as a mighty nation and deep-rooted disappointment for not living the dreams of our founding fathers.

This season, our dear nation comes under the spotlight, prodding us to look at ourselves in the mirror and take stock of our achievements and our mistakes. On this occasion, we are yet presented with another opportunity to introspect and to do what is right, no matter the consequences. It is time to take a detour. It doesn’t have to start with a sudden, volte-face. It can start with few positive steps by all of us towards making this polity a success.

Many have done their bit long before us; men and women who contributed selflessly to the development of our country. They were stars that shone the way to greatness and glory. And in this issue, NLNG celebrates them.

On October 9, 2010, we shall honour 28 leading lights and reward, once again, winners of the Nigeria Prize for Science and the Nigeria Prize for Literature. On this day, we take stock of our achievements.

However, the lot of many Nigerians is still poverty and it is time to say Yes to being true Nigerians, casting aside sentiments that have made us trudge towards the dreams of our founding fathers. Read the keynote speaker’s speech at the Grand Award Night 2010 by Chima Ibeneche, Managing Director of Nigeria LNG Limited.

My congratulations go to Professor Akahehomen Akii Ibhadode for winning the Nigeria Prize for Science and I wish the three finalists for the literature prize, Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, Irobi Esiaba and Ahmed Yerima, the best in their bid to clinch the Literature Prize.

And back to business. Hear from some of our top executives.

Let’s celebrate.

Siene Allwell-Brown 2

NLNG - The Magazine

NLNG - The Magazine is the corporate magazine of Nigeria LNG Limited.

The views and opinions within the magazine however do not necessarily reflect those of the Nigeria LNG Limited or its management.

Editor-in-Chief: Siene Allwell-Brown Managing Editor: Ifeanyi Mbanefo Deputy Managing Editor: Mohammed Al Sharji Editor: Yemi Adeyemi Deputy Editor: Elkanah Chawai Writers: Emma Nwatu, Glory Joe, Anne-Marie Palmer-Ikuku, Dan Daniel, Emeka Agbayi, Eva Ben-Wari All correspondence to: Yemi Adeyemi, Editor, NLNG The Magazine, Nigeria LNG Limited, C&C Building, Plot 1684, Sanusi Fafunwa Street, Victoria Island, PMB 12774, Lagos, Nigeria. Phones: 234 1 2624190-4, 2624556-60, 08039074453. e-mail: yemi.adeyemi@nlng.com. www.nigerialng.com Editorial consultancy, design and production: Taijo Wonukabe Limited, 2 Anifowoshe Close, Surulere.

Tel 01-6283223, 08023130829. e-mail info@taijowonukabe.com, web http://www.taijowonukabe.com Printed in Nigeria by PrintPro Projects Limited, 2 Anifowoshe Close, Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria.

Contents The Prize Programme of Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Time to say Yes to Nigeria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Prized Practical Professor Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 ‘Damn-Good’ Storyteller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 In the Spotlight - Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Esiabi Irobi - A Tribute. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 2009 GAN in pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Halls of Fame Their Labours, not in Vain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Insight Where our treasure is... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 Where are the seafarers? NSML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 NLNG Operations - An Insight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

p23

p9

p21

p13 NLNG - The Magazine

3

Programme of Events 6.30PM Cocktails

7.00PM National Anthem 7.05PM Introductions 7.10PM Welcome Speech 7.20PM Keynote Address 7.40PM Gallery of Art Remarks by DG, National 7.50PM iversal Performance by Beeta Un 8.00PM Fame for Letters Induction into Hall of 8.10PM Fame for Science Induction into Hall of 8.20PM Dinner 8.40PM rks Guest of Honour’s Rema 8.50PM ce) Prize Presentation (Scien 9.20PM ature) Prize Presentation (Liter 9.40PM Vote of Thanks 9.50PM Departures

4

NLNG - The Magazine

w e l c o m e

sp e e c h

Welcome!

G

ood evening and welcome everyone to the 7th edition of the Grand Award Night, the annual occasion for award of the literature and science prizes sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited.

In a couple of hours from now, we will be crowning winners and celebrating their successes. We shall also be honouring eminent Nigerians whose works have positively impacted our lives.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, there are times when you take effective control to manage and contain the emotions of your inner recess, but tonight, I am overwhelmed. So, please permit me to give a free reign to my emotions and to sincerely tell you that we count ourselves honoured by your presence.

I will begin by welcoming the Amanyanabo of Grand Bonny Kingdom, His Royal Majesty, King Edward Asimini William Dappa Pepple, Perekule IX in a special way, by saying Igboma. You have identified with this project, since it started in 2004. Tonight your presence has not only lifted this occasion, but is also a practical demonstration of your love and support of our developmental initiatives. I also welcome the Royal Majesties of our Pipeline Communities, His Royal Majesty Flt (rtd) Eze Robinson O. Robinson, Eze Ekpeye Logbo of Ekpeye Kingdom and His Royal Majesty, Oba of Ogbaland Chukwumela Nnam Obi 11. Meka - Nu. We sincerely thank you for your support in creating and sustaining a conducive environment for our company to operate.

We also want to give especial welcome to our judges and committee members drawn from the Nigerian Academies of Science and Literature.

They have proven to be men and women of integrity, determined to promote and sustain the growth of science and literature in the country.

Beyond such formalities as setting agenda for the administration of the project, these eminent people painstakingly sift through loads of works, seeking and recognising merit.

Since the establishment of the prizes in 2004, you have not only enhanced the quality of the project, but like true partners, you have also

continued on page 25

NLNG - The Magazine

5

w e l c o m e

incorporated and sustained the strategic values of Integrity and Excellence which Nigeria LNG Limited holds very dearly. For all these, we take pride tonight to say welcome.

This year’s literature competition is on drama and the event will not be complete without welcoming our Special Guest of Honour in the person of Mr. Sam Loco Efeeimwonkiyeke of Langbodo fame. As an actor and dramatist, Sam Loco is in a class all by himself.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about Sam Loco is that he spreads laughter and humour like sunshine. And although he is always in public eye, he deliberately shies away from the glamour. I am told that he played his usual tricks when our people called to invite him to this ceremony. Sam Loco had answered the phone, pretending to be a Personal Assistant; it took some persuasion to convince him to reveal his true identity. Everyone had a hearty laughter in the office that day. That is how far he will go to tickle your ribs. Sam Loco, you are most welcome.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Nigeria LNG Limited, Chief (Dr.) Osobonye LongJohn, is here tonight, with his fellow chiefs from our host community, Bonny. The chairman is one who actively participates in community development. Indeed, he is usually the first to tell you that he wears two caps, one as chairman of NLNG and the other as a Bonny chief. We welcome and thank you and the chiefs for standing by us.

When we embarked on this project, we knew clearly what we were going to achieve and thought of a project that would reflect our image as an international company committed to helping build a better Nigeria. Ladies and Gentlemen, without being immodest, we have been able to achieve some of this dream; going down memory lane and seeing the huge audience, the panache and the charm and the sheer attention to detail of the administrative process of the two prizes confirm this to me. No wonder the Grand Award Night has come to be seen as a “must attend” social event in Nigeria’s social calendar, an event where writers, scientists, journalists, captains of industries, government officials and men and women who have excelled in their various pursuits meet to interact with one another.

In other countries, events such as this have not only lit, but fanned the flame of nationalism in the hearts of citizens and led both to the erection of sites to preserve statues and sculptures of scientists and writers, together with the merchandising of memorabilia, as efforts to inspire budding scientists and writers. I suggest you visit the British House of Parliament, take a look at the statue of Winston Churchill and you will discover that his shoe glitters more than the rest of the body. I am told young Britons rub the shoe with their hands and touch their heads, believing that one day they will be like Winston Churchill, the orator.

The essence is to hold up for emulation scientists and writers and to bring their work to national light for our enhanced national development. We shall yet get there.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, this year’s edition of the Grand Award Night is exceptional to us for two reasons.

First, it is coming at a time when the country is celebrating 50 years of nationhood and Nigeria LNG Limited is proud to be a part of this celebration, since within those 50 years, this country of ours has made it possible for us to enjoy 21 years of corporate existence and 11 years of uninterrupted production, occupying an enviable position as a reliable world supplier of LNG and contributing 7% to the nation’s GDP. The second reason is that tonight for the first time in the history of our nation, 28 distinguished Nigerians selected by The Nigerian Academy of Science and The Nigerian Academy of Letters will be inducted into the halls of fame for science and letters. This is part of our contribution to Nigeria at 50. We are also partnering in this project with the National Gallery of Art in whose halls the citations, plaques and photographs of these distinguished individuals will be displayed.

Tonight, therefore, we shall realise the truth in this line from our national pledge: “The labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain.”We shall metaphorically light up the halls of fame and hold up for emulation and adulation our

6

NLNG - The Magazine

sp e e c h

heroes and heroines whose contributions have positively impacted our lives.

These include great minds like Gordian Ezekwe, Thomas Lambo, Samuel Manuwa, Ifedayo Oladapo, Chike Obi, Benjamin Osuntokun, Victor Oyenuga, Kenneth Dike, Ben Enwonwu, Abubakar Iman, Ladi Kwali, Christopher Okigbo, Fela Sowande and Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Please, may we rise and observe a minute silence for their departed souls.

May the souls of the departed distinguished achievers rest in peace.

From the youthful looks of the people in this hall, one can surmise that most of us would have read Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, and other books

by Chinua Achebe, or The Trials of Brother Jero and The Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka. Or J.P. Clark’s A Decade of Tongues. Most of us too are also all too familiar with the works of Oladipo Akinkugbe in the control of high blood pressure. Today, it is my privilege to take part in the ceremonies leading up to the admission of these individuals to the halls of fame. I feel the same way in welcoming other great nominees to the hall of fame for literature and sciences: Jacob Ajayi, Ayo Bamgbose, Michael Echeruo and Emmanuel Obiechina, Adenike Abiose, Oluwafeyisola Adegoke, Oladipo Akinkugbe, Umaru Shehu, Sanya Onabamiro and Idris Mohammed Now, let me come to one of tonight’s key events: the Prizes. I congratulate, on behalf of the Board and Management of Nigeria LNG Limited, Akaehomen Ibhadode, Professor of Production Engineering at the University of Benin, winner of the 2010 edition of The Nigeria Prize for Science. His work Development of ‘New Method of Precision Die Design’ is a mathematic model for the design of forging die based on expansion. His ground-breaking work was adjudged the best because of, among other things, its relevance to the development of small and medium scale industries, which will drive the desired industrialisation in Nigeria. Professor Ibahadode shall today join other Nigerian laureates: Akpoveta Susu, Kingsley Ahdulimen, Michael Adikwu, Ebenezer Meshida and Andrew Nok. In 2008, Kaine Agary proved that excellence has no age limit when she became the youngest at 29 to win The Nigeria Prize for Literature with her first novel Yellow Yellow. In doing that, she joins the ranks of such eminent writers as Gabriel Okara, late Ezenwa Ohaeto, Mabel Segun, Akachi Ezeigbo and Ahmed Yerima as Nigerian laureates.

Tonight, Ahmed Yerima is again on the final list for the literature prize for his book Little Drops. His book Hard Ground won the drama prize in 2006. Also in the final list are Adinoyi–Ojo Onukaba’s The Killing Swamp and Esiaba Irobi’s Cemetery Road. Unfortunately, Esiaba recently lost the battle to cancer at the age of 49, but he is with us here in spirit with his book. May his soul rest in perfect peace.

These three books in contention for the literature prize emerged from a total of 93 entries received from Nigerian playwrights around the world. I am told the works are exciting to read. May the best book win. May the happiness of these playwrights and the science prize winner, Professor Ibhadode, with that of their families and friends, ignite the hall. May they all bask in the klieg lights of success.

And as we celebrate our 50 years of independence, may we, in all aspects of our personal and national lives, never cease to seek excellence the celebration of which we are all gathered here tonight. Therein lies the sure path to individual and collective greatness.

In a few minutes from now, the Managing Director of Nigeria LNG Limited, Mr. Chima Ibeneche will take the podium to tell us why we should say yes to Nigeria. Chima, a thinker, a builder and an orator with numerous achievements tucked under his belt, will tonight tackle one of Nigeria’s biggest problem, how to make a nation out of this versed country. I am certain that Chima will acquit himself very well. So please lend him your ears.

I have taken liberty with you and offered you all a snap view of what we have for you tonight. My last request is for you to sit back and enjoy the night.

Thank you and welcome.

Speech by Mr Basheer Koko, Deputy Managing Director, Nigeria LNG Limited, at the 7th Grand Award Night on October 9, 2010, at Eko Expo Hall, Eko Hotels and Suites, Lagos.

k e yn o t e

a dd r e ss

Time to Say Yes to Nigeria

E

verybody, I gather, dreams dreams, but some people routinely forget. I guess that must have happened to me, for I do not remember having dreamt that I would one day give the keynote speech at The Grand Award Night.

I am neither a former head of state nor a politician – common characteristics of some of the previous keynote speakers, so my first impulse, when the offer was made, was to say NO, mainly because I am involved. I am after all the host of this event.

However, realising that Nigeria will be 50 years old at this time and that the subject of the lecture could be on or associated with Nigeria, made it easier for me to accept. I love Nigeria like most of you here tonight. I also have strong views about this country and where it ought to be in the League of Nations.

I would like to talk to you tonight about Nigeria. And I believe it is Time To Say Yes To Nigeria.

Yes, it is time to say yes to Nigeria because our nay saying is at the root of our non-performance and the stunted growth of our nation after 50 years of independence.

An anniversary is a good time to take stock. I must say that despite our penchant for complaints, there are a few things we can be grateful for. So, if you permit me, I wish to remind you of some of them.

To start with, we have plenty going for us – a great country, a great climate, and abundant resources. We are so blessed that some have blamed our backwardness and poverty on our clement weather and abundant natural resources.

And, of course, we have many great, eminent citizens who have conquered the world.

Some of them will be honoured tonight. Prizes will be awarded to an exemplary scientist and to an exemplary writer. Others will be inducted into The Nigerian Hall of Fame for Science and The Nigerian Hall of Fame for Letters. Induction into a hall of fame by an academy is the highest honour any scholar can receive.

The selection process was long, tedious and rigorous. I congratulate all those who made the final list. I am however aware that a medal, such as the one we are handing out tonight would be an inadequate compensation for your labour and for the frustrations of your loved ones who bore the heroic burden of your struggle to better the lives of our compatriots.

The sacrifice you made was not easy; what you achieved was not small. For that, every Nigerian owes you some heartfelt thanks.

NLNG - The Magazine

7

k e yn o t e

This honour has no monetary value. The reason is to instil in us all, especially in younger Nigerians an appreciation of excellence as its own reward and the pursuit of excellence as an end in itself. These are values that have defined scholarship and excellence for countless centuries. These are values that will save Nigeria from self destruction.

Having said our thanks to these great patriots, let’s continue with the good news about Nigeria. We may not have arrived at our desired destination, but we have consistently demonstrated that we would like to arrive together.

We have survived a civil war and the existential threats of the Niger Delta militancy as one indivisible nation. Nigeria has held together despite the arrogant disrespect of some of our fellow citizens who play politics on the basis of tribe, ethnicity or religion We have not only survived, we have begun to make tentative steps in economic development and infrastructure building. Think of the strides we have made in several sectors of our national life.

Take aviation. The era of an ailing Nigeria Airways, of battling touts for boarding pass and of running 400 meters dash to catch an aircraft parked on the tarmac seems to be eons away. Today, unless you meet with an inclement weather, you have 80 - 90% chances of making your trip. Those of us who flew into Lagos for this event will testify that the old hassles are gone. Air travel in this country is no longer the lottery it used to be.

And you no longer need to travel just to find out how your folks in the village are doing! You call them on mobile phones. They can also reach you through midnight calls when they are cash-strapped. Telecommunications is another area where we have made tremendous progress. From just a little over 450, 000 lines in 2001 representing a teledensity of 0.4 percent or less than one telephone line per 100 people, we have leapt over the 80 million subscriber mark.

Nigeria now boasts a respectable teledensity of over 50 percent. Nigeria’s telecoms revenue is projected to hit USD 12 billion in 2013. We are ahead of India with 0.6 percent teledensity; Mexico, Vietnam and South Africa are all trailing behind Nigeria.

The single magic wand for this miracle was President Olusegun Obasanjo’s courage in reforming and liberalising the telecommunications industry which had a meagre 400,000 lines, half of which were useless, when he returned to power in 1999.

The banking sector also grew spectacularly, thanks to the consolidation exercise. We now have big banks with heftier purses and more muscles to undertake bigger projects. The current efforts to bring discipline and corporate governance will make them even worthier institutions.

We also had the good sense of repaying the back-breaking debts we owed the Paris Club. Had the windfall of the high oil price regime of the early years of this century not been used to buy our freedom, we would have squandered it and still been bonded to our creditors.

We have also witnessed the halting return of the middle class and the non-dramatic but steady growth of non-oil and gas sectors of the economy.

We should also not forget the deft steps taken by the Yar’Adua administration under the label of amnesty to address the Niger Delta crisis. This programme, similar to General Gowon’s No Victor, No Vanquished declaration after the war, has provided the hope that we may be able to overcome this challenge without unnecessary loss of lives and without long term damage to mutual trust among fellow citizens.

I sense that a miracle similar to that in telecommunications industry is afoot in the power sector where President Goodluck Jonathan has announced a road map that will eliminate state monopoly by privatising power generation and distribution. This has the potential to revolutionise the sector as the 1999 privatisation revolutionised the telecommunications sector.

Similarly the increase of domestic gas price from US$0.5/MMBTU to US$2/MMBTU, as part of the implementation of the Gas Master Plan, and the musing about the deregulation of petroleum products in Nigeria indicate

8

NLNG - The Magazine

a dd r e ss

that the Jonathan Administration is keen to leave a legacy of sustainable economic growth and improved wellbeing for Nigerians.. These policy directions are right, but may be difficult to implement. I pray for courage and support for those who will be charged with the eventual implementation.

It has not all been good news. I know because whenever I meet any Nigerian at an airport or at a party, it takes only five minutes before our conversation turns to complaints about the state of our country.

Yes, it has been 50 tough years. Sometime you wonder how we could have squandered such beautiful opportunities so easily.

Yes, it has been frustrating living here. And yes, it is depressing being singled out for a special treatment at international airports just because one is holding the green passport. It has been a double whammy. You couldn’t live here; you couldn’t live outside here. One way or the other we were condemned to an uncertain fate.

In my view, the most spectacular event of Nigeria’s 50 years of independence is one that did not occur. We have lived for half a century as the hope of the black man, the giant of Africa, the most populous black nation on earth without demonstrating – for even a day – that the black man is capable of holding his own; of caring for himself.

Our history, our geography, our population, our natural resources, our ebullient nature made us the custodians of the black hope. What a marvellous destiny being called to hold aloft the Blackman’s banner!

We betrayed that destiny, that expectation, that hope. What a stunning failure; what stunning ill fortune. It is even worse that our failure and betrayal are both public and publicised. But for the redemptive rise of President Barack Obama, the Blackman’s banner was permanently stained with our blemish.

Take security. We have been racing from bad to worse. In the 1980s because of rapid economic growth characterised by stark inequality, deprivation, and a perverse law enforcement capabilities, serious crime grew to epidemic proportions in Lagos and other urban areas.

Crime statistics remained scary despite the fact that crimes were grossly understated because of public distrust of the police which contributed to underreporting of crimes. But more important than statistics, our citizens felt and continue to feel the sharp end of these crimes in their daily lives.

The crime wave was exacerbated by worsening economic conditions and by the ineffectiveness, inefficiency, and corruption of police, and the entire system of administration of justice.

And believe it or not, those were the good old days!

Today belongs to area boys, pirates, oil thieves, armed robbers and robber politicians. The rise of militia-like vigilantes such as the Bakassi Boys, MEND and OPC may have various justifications, but their existence pose a serious threat to the sovereignty of this nation. These vigilantes tend to take over the fundamental function of the state, including the use of coercion, but unfortunately without the due process and the checks of a functioning formal legal system. The mushrooming of these groups has led to broader, ethnic-based confrontations and the spread of lethal violence across the land.

The situation has even further deteriorated. There are daily reports of widespread armed muggings, kidnappings, assaults, burglary, bank robberies and extortion, often involving violence and in broad daylight.

The question is where is the government in all these? Why does the government permit this encroachment of its monopoly of power and the use of instruments of coercion? Obviously nature abhors a vacuum.

Section 14B of the Constitution is clear on the fact that: “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government” On security, our governments have failed Nigerians. Whoever wishes to rule Nigeria must make provision of security the number one priority of his/ her government.

That is not all. We are a desperately poor country. Nigeria may be a resource rich country, but her people are desperately poor.

continued on page 30

the prize

Prized

practical professor preacher

‘I want to be able to affect the lives of people positively wherever I am’

W

By Yemi Adeyemi and Elkanah Chawai

hen Professor Akahehomen O Akii Ibhadode makes eye contact with you, you intuitively know that he is a man you can talk to. And when you get close enough to ask him a question, he gesticulates with his open palms, a trait that he is receptive to ideas. But then, he has to be.

Ibhadode is a professor of Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria but he carries no airs around at all. He has achieved ground-breaking feats in engineering especially in the area of Die Design. His work, Development of New Method in Die Design’ was adjudged the best entry for the Nigeria Prize for Science.

Meet Professor Ibhadode and find out why he came out tops.

Tell us a little about your early days I was born 13th September 1957. My primary education was at the Nigerian Institute of Oil Palm Research in Edo State. Then I proceeded to (the famous) Edo College for secondary education. Thereafter, I proceeded to the University of Ibadan for preliminary studies, then the University of Lagos for a first degree in Mechanical Engineering. I graduated in 1981 and after youth service in Jos, secured employment with the University of Benin in 1982. I have been working here since.

Why engineering?

Right from when I was younger, I have always wanted to do things with my hands. I love fixing things and also taking them apart. So when the time to pick a career came, I wanted something very creative and practical and that’s was why I chose mechanical engineering.

Back in your childhood, was there anyone who inspired or influenced you?

That is undoubtedly my eldest brother, John Ibhadode. He was instrumental to what I am today. I lived with him at a very tender age and he instilled a lot of discipline and the passion for handwork into me. He made selfless sacrifices to see me through school.

Where were you when you heard the news that you won the Science Prize?

I was at Nnamdi Azikwe University, Akwa for an external examination of the final year students. I went there on August 10, a Tuesday. Then on Wednesday during a recess, I saw so many missed calls on my phone, which was on silent (mode) because of the exams. There was also a text from Professor Ibidapo-Obe, congratulating me for winning the award and requesting me to get in touch. I was really ecstatic but had to quickly go back to the session to continue with the interview of students. After the session, I gave him a call and we talked. He was very excited. In the course of our chat, I informed him that he was my teacher as he taught me engineering analysis at the University of Lagos. He became even more excited. He was so happy that his former student has won the award. He told me that it was keenly contested and that mine came out tops. He expressed the hope that we will meet very soon.

What is the focus of the winning research work?

This research work that won the Nigeria Prize for Science 2010 is titled Development of a New Method for Precision Die Design.

Firstly, a die is a metal mould used for mass-producing metal products.

For example, if we take the automobile, some of the parts produced in dies are crankshafts, connecting rods, cylinder liners, gudgeon pins, ball joints and other steering linkages, gear blanks and some finished gears, universal joints, bolt and nut blanks, etc. Because the automobile is a mass-produced item, virtually all the metal parts are produced in dies. Dies are also used in producing parts for other products such as airplanes, spacecraft and various machines whose parts are subjected to severe stresses in operation.

Other areas where dies are used include drawing and extrusion processes.

They are used for drawing all wire sizes used in electrical, electronic and telecommunications industries. They are also used for drawing various sizes of bright rods, bars, pipes and tubes made from steel, aluminium and other metals.

NLNG - The Magazine

9

“Right from when I was younger, I have always wanted to do things with my hands. I love fixing things and also taking them apart.�

Dies are also used in producing extruded metal products. For example, the aluminium profiles used for constructing sliding windows and doors in our houses are produced from extrusion dies.

Secondly, precision dies are used for producing precision metal products. This means that such parts can be used straight from the die as it is produced on the shop-floor. The parts do not necessarily go through other processes before it is used by the customer. Precision products are of the desired dimensions as produced and reduce waste and production cost.

Thirdly, die design is the design of dies that can produce the required metal product. The designed die should also be able to be made at an acceptable cost because dies are usually very expensive. Current design methods use the rule-of-the-thumb which relies heavily on experience gathered over the years.

There are no fixed rules and different approaches could lead to the same result though in differing degrees of success, that is, with respect to degree of accuracy and cost of producing the die.

Fourthly, the new design method developed in this work gives a theoretical basis for the design of precision dies used in cold-forging, extrusion and drawing processes. This method dispenses with experience so to say and gives a fixed rule for designing such dies. The method uses the tolerance specified on the product to be made as input into the design process such that products having precise dimensions can be produced. The design method can be applied to the design of high pressure vessels used in the deep sea oil industry. The design method

10

NLNG - The Magazine

has been published in a book titled Precision Die Design by the Die Expansion Method by Trans Tech Publications Ltd, Zurich, Switzerland. It is currently the only book of its kind on die design in the world.

Now, to put it simply, the new design method developed can be used to design dies used for producing all classes of wires, cables, drawn rods and tubes, various extruded products and cold forgings.

What are the benefits of this research to Nigeria?

Products like electrical, electronic, telecommunications cables and other wires, drawn rods and tubes, extrusions and cold forgings will continue to be in increased demand in Nigeria. Only few of these products are currently made locally while the rest are imported singly or as parts of machines and equipment. As the Nigerian economy expands, small and medium industries (SMIs) engaged in the production of these products will increase leading to increased demand for dies.

On the international scene, it will affect die design positively, and confer some measure of respectability on Nigeria for being the source of such a die design method.

Were there any challenges you encountered in the course of the research that probably almost led to you giving up?

Yes, there were quite a few occasions like that when such challenges as poor working conditions, lack of adequate laboratory facilities and electric power, and many other distractions almost led to me giving up. But then I will charge myself up again, looking at the years and efforts that have gone into

the work. I was also lucky that the work did not require much laboratory experiments except the ones to test the validity of theoretical results for which luckily laboratory equipment were available.

Another major challenge which affects every aspect of Nigeria is lack of adequate electric power. When power is unavailable to operate air-conditioners and fans, mental concentration is difficult. During the early stages of the work, I had to use kerosene lantern at night to work, and in the later years, use electric power generator with its attendant noise and high cost of operation. In the laboratory, when experiments were being done and electric power cuts off, the whole experimental set-up is disorganised.

How were these challenges resolved?

The challenges were quite daunting. However, I try not to allow problems to overwhelm me. I believe that there is always more than one way of doing things. If one fails, try another. I believed in what I was doing and no ordinary problem was going to stop me. Problems exist to be solved. As problems came up, I tried to solve them and moved ahead.

One of my research publications, done in the UK, won the Edwin Walker Prize for 1988 at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, United Kingdom for its outstanding contribution to the field of Manufacturing Engineering. If one could be counted as one of the best in the United Kingdom, why should one waste away in Nigeria? Above all, it is God who gives the grace to succeed.

How long did this research project take?

Let’s say about 20 years. The work evolved from one of the areas I suggested for further studies in my

T HE

PhD thesis in 1987 at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Work on the project started immediately I returned from the UK later in that year.

Six international and three national publications came out of the work. The work was organised into a book in 2008 and was accepted for publication by the Swiss publisher. The book came out in September 2009.

I’ll quickly mention that some of my former students worked on some aspects of the project. Dr. Patrick Amiolemhen did some work on the machining cost model. Mr. Geoffrey Aibangbe carried out some laboratory tests to validate the die expansion theory on multiplex dies and Mr. Muktar Musa developed the tool life equation used in the case study presented in the book.

Kindly give an idea of what the research costs.

No, I cannot. It is an intellectual work done over 20 years. However, the publisher sells the book at 166 Euros per copy.

What steps do you think can be taken to make sure that research outcomes in educational institutions aid industries?

I quite agree with you that there is virtually no link between our research works and the industry.

It is indeed unfortunate. The reasons are not farfetched. One, our SMEs are barely surviving. Most have gone under. They seem unable to support research that could help their operations. However, if they take the philosophy of always looking for new ways of doing things better, they could support research in universities and research institutes.

However, they would also need the collaboration of equally adventurous researchers who can make this work. This was why I organised the Conference on New Products and Technologies in 2001 at the University of Benin in collaboration with the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) which sponsored it. It brought together researchers and some SME operators for three days to exhibit and discuss research results and operational problems. It was quite successful.

Our universities seem to feel too comfortable looking up to governments for meagre subventions instead of seeking for other areas of additional revenue. They place too much emphasis on number of publications rather than the quality or impact of research on society. If the universities could device a system where impact value of research is used as a criterion for career progression, then our researches could impact society more positively and the link between researchers and industries will be created.

The multinational companies operating in Nigeria with the financial muscle to support research are usually not interested in local research as their researches are usually done in their offshore headquarters. What should be our concern for now

P RIZE

is how we can use our research effort to assist our SMEs to operate profitably. Researchers should seek out companies and relate our work to their operational problems so that we can become more relevant to society.

This current work is already in a useable form in the industry. It is a mathematical procedure which an expert in this area can use to design the relevant dies. However, we do need to have more tool-shops equipped with modern machine tools such as CNC machines, tool-room lathes, toolroom mills, VMCs, EDMs, etc. With such machine tools, we’ll be able to make virtually all moulds and dies.

What do you plan to do with the prize money of US$50,000?

Well, I have not given so much thought to that.

But I think it will have to go into something to help the profession, especially research and production of precision die making and advancement of die making technology in Nigeria. That’s what comes to my mind immediately.

When did you first hear of the Nigeria Prize for Science and what is your perception on its goal?

I guess I heard of the prize a few years back but then I probably got to learn more about it two years ago when Professor Meshida won it. I can confirm from my own experience that the process is transparent and rigorous. I didn’t have to go and see any godfather; in fact it was one of my colleagues who nominated me. The award just came about from any assessment of what I have done, presented before an objective group of people. I think that is quite commendable both on the part of Nigeria LNG and

the science prize committee. It is a great future for Nigeria if this trend continues. Nigeria LNG should keep up this good work. I believe that it is going to go a long way to inspire younger persons who may be looking up to prize winners to also be like them.

Are there other research projects in which you are involved?

Oh yes! There are quite a number. I am involved in the development of a high performance friction lining material from local raw materials consisting of palm kernel shell as base material along with other constituents. The performance of the brake pads made from the formulation compare well with good quality brake pads in the market. This was a PhD work done by Dr. Ishaya Musa Dagwa, the current Head of Mechanical Engineering Department at University of Abuja. The project won an award at the First NUC research and Development Fair in 2004 at the National Exhibition Centre, Abuja. There is also the research into the use of Nigerian raw materials for welding fluxes for electric-arc welding of carbon steels and aluminium gas welding.

This again came about from another PhD work of Dr. Festus Oyawale, current Head of Industrial and Production Engineering Department, University of Ibadan, and Dr. Joseph Achebo of my department at the University of Benin.

Others include the development of improved home-made crucibles for traditional metal casting and the Kilishi Project. Traditional Kilishi is a sunheat dried lightweight, low-moisture, shelf-stable meat product of the savannah/sahel fringes of West Africa. The research and development partnership

“Poor working conditions, lack of adequate laboratory facilities and electric power, and many other distractions almost led to me giving up.”

NLNG - The Magazine

11

T HE

P RIZE

Prof Ibhadode and colleagues in the laboratory

In fact, I don’t support any club whether at the premiership or any other league like most Nigerians do these days. My idea of relaxation is to just be in the comfort of my home, reading a newspaper, or watching any educational programme on the television, in the company of my family. I find that very relaxing.

So what advice do you have for young Nigerians who desire to make a career in the sciences or engineering?

to upgrade the Kilishi process technology had been designed to achieve industrial scale production of Kilishi. The project commenced in 2002 as a partnership between different organisations.

The project, which produced a model Kilishi factory at the University of Benin, Nigeria, trained over 20 traditional Kilishi producers in the new processing technique and trained local equipment/ machine fabricators for the production of purpose– built Kilishi–type processing equipment. I was the Design Engineer for the Kilishi-type processing equipment made up of industrial tray – dryers, charcoal flavouring ovens and Kilishi-type meat slicers. Mr. Imanah of the Equipment Maintenance Centre, University of Benin, worked with me on the fabrication of the equipment, while Professor John Igene, Faculty of Agriculture, was the co-ordinator of the entire project.

Again in 2001, I raised a team to build the first Nigerian made internal combustion engine. We succeeded in 2004 in producing two hand-made three-horse power petrol engines which won the Outstanding Contribution Award for the research project with outstanding contribution in the field of engineering exhibited at the First Nigerian Universities Research and Development fair organised by the National Universities Commission (NUC) at the International Conference Centre, Abuja which I mentioned earlier. The documentary on it for the Voyage of Discovery series of the NTA is aired regularly.

You are a pastor as well as a scientist! Two things which in the world today, people believe don’t go together. How do you couple them?

I balance my life in science and my life in the church based on the fact that I believe when you look at nature, it is so vast and the knowledge that we have as science is so minute compared to the

12

NLNG - The Magazine

concept of the Almighty. There are so many things that we cannot explain and all science attempts to do is to make a little scratch of what the answers are. In fact, some inspirations that have advanced the cause of science come from religion.

What fuels your passion in all the things you do?

That is excellence. I want to be able to affect the lives of people positively wherever I am and that is why I always strive to bring out the best in me.

What do you do in your leisure time and how frequently do you find time to relax?

If I am not busy with work in the office, laboratory or at church, I just sit back, read newspapers or any other interesting magazine or journal, watch the television and bond with my family.

My idea of relaxation is somewhat different. I don’t go to the staff club like people expect most lecturers to. I also don’t take much interest in football.

Prof Ibhadode and his family.

From left: Ehimen, Osezua, Ahuoze, Oseikhuemen and his wife, Patience

I have four children, incidentally the four of them are in the sciences –three boys are in engineering and the girl is a doctor, purely their own decision, and I say to them that they should be hardworking, strive for excellence in any thing they do and be accommodating to as many views as can move them forward. And this is my advice to all other young persons that I come across in my work as a lecturer or as a pastor; all that is required to excel in science or any other vocation is hard work, painstakingness and dedication in all one does. In the last few days that the announcement has been made that I won the Science Prize, a lot of people including students and young lecturers have been coming to me or calling me not just to congratulate me but to also let me know that they look up to me and will like to be like me. I say to them that you will not just be like me, you will in fact be greater; all that you need to do is imbibe those qualities and in all you do, you will surely excel.

Please tell us about the woman behind Professor Ibhadode.

My partner in all I do is my lovely wife, Patience Ibhadode. We have been married for the past 26 years. She is a very lovely, caring and homely woman. She is a friend, a confidant and a mother. After all the hard work, I come home and she is there to welcome me and give me the required vigour to continue to do what I do.

T HE

P RIZE

‘Damn -good’ storyteller ‘I can now hold my head high that I do serious writing’’

By Elkanah Chawai & Yemi Adeyemi

You can’t easily pin a profession on Adinoyi Ojo Onukaba. He had started off as a creative writer in the early 1980’s, while he was a theatre arts student at the University of Ibadan.

Thirty years after, Adinoyi has grown to be an adroit playwright and more.

Call him a jack of all trades and master of all. In whatever he does; he is hard working and dogged!

A

dinoyi grew up as an activist in his own way. He was born in Ihima in Okehi Local Government Area of Kogi State on March 9, 1960. Growing up, he was shaped by happenings around him which interested him and piqued his curiosity.

“I attended a Roman Catholic primary school before going to Lennon Memorial College in Okene in present day Kogi State. I was a normal kid despite that I was very inquisitive and troublesome. I believe that very early in life, I developed what you could call a sense of what is right and wrong; a sense of what is equitable and fair. I never would allow anyone to trample on my right. I was very vocal and these are things that have stayed with me. That society taught me a lot of values and it has also provided my cultural bedrock. I am very involved in the culture of the place. My PhD dissertation was on mass performances in my area. It is because I spent the first 17 years of my life in that environment that I have imbibed the cultural values of that place.”

His love for drama had started as far back as secondary school where he was drawn to acting with a drama group.

“I have been scribbling for as long as I can remember. It was in high school that I started acting. I joined the dramatic society in my secondary school, Lennon Memorial College, under the tutelage of late Reverend Nelson Ofodile. I became the president of the dramatic society and I started acting in plays in school. That was

what prepared me for my decision to go and study Theatre Arts in the University of Ibadan. It was in the university when I took a course in playwriting that I became seriously engaged in it. I started writing plays and one of the plays I wrote as a student was included in an anthology of plays by students. From there I grew and it has become a calling,” Adinoyi says.

He describes his first attempts at writing as tedious. Nevertheless, the tortuous road towards fame paid off. He was so assiduous and very promising that he was drafted into script writing for the popular soap opera, Sura di Tailor.

“When I was at the university, the producer of the programme, Kunle Bamtefa, came to my teacher and mentor, Professor Osofisan, and wanted him to take over the writing of the scripts because he wasn’t getting quality scripts. Professor Osofisan was involved in quite a number of things and thought that he didn’t have the time.

He told Mr Bamtefa that he had three of his best students to do it and I was one of the three chosen. We were shown part episodes of the comedy series and had to take our cue from there. I wrote the first three scripts and the moment Kunle Bamtefa saw the scripts, he drove from Lagos to Ibadan and he commended the script. He said he wanted to retain me as a writer for the programme. He was paying me N200 per script which was a lot of money then for a student. That was when I started having confidence in my ability as a writer.”

Now established and known home and abroad, he says his nomination for the literature prize has further boosted his confidence.

“I am happy and excited to have gotten that recognition. It has raised my confidence level and I can now hold my head high that I do serious writing.”

Serious writing and inspiration produced his book, The Killing Swamp. He defines his inspiration as thus: “Inspiration is a composite of lived experience and imagination. My brief encounter with Saro-Wiwa in 1988 provided a spark for The Killing Swamp. There were a lot of things that came out from pure imagination. It is experiences around you that come into play.

“The idea of The Killing Swamp has been in my head since 1995 when Ken Saro-Wiwa and the eight other Ogoni activists were killed. It was my own way of

NLNG - The Magazine

13

T HE

and so many who have died before then and put it in the context of the fact that the Niger-Delta has been neglected for a long time and that the companies have operated with scant regard for the environment,” he explains.

“A good writer is a good story teller; someone who is able to arrest your attention. When you start to work, you don’t want to put it down until the very end.

It is the treatment of an issue and the language, the plot and the coming alive of the characters. They remind you of people you have met. And of course the message of the work, it must be such that it is powerful, appealing and also in a way tries to unravel a mystery in our lives.”

Adinoyi’s plays, The Tower of Burden, A Resting Place and Her Majesty Visit have been staged in Broadway in New York, Kenya, Lagos and Abuja and on the BBC world service. He hopes his book on SaroWiwa will be staged in 2010.

On how far he thought his book would go in the Nigeria Prize for Literature competition when he applied, he said: “It was a 50-50 chance. I am pleasantly surprised that it has come this far. I knew it was a good work but I also realise that there are equally talented people and I know that the NLNG prize is a highly sought- after prize.

“It is very prestigious. I believe that it will contribute to the development of literature in Nigeria. I wish other corporate organisations take up this kind of challenge NLNG has thrown. We need similar prizes in other areas.”

Adinoyi lost his wife the same year he published The Killing Swamp. To fill in the void left by his wife, he has been off writing for a while to take care of the home front. He spends most of his time taking care of his two children, Asuku and Ebikere, who dream that someday, they will become great, even greater than their daddy.

“I lost my wife Rachael on August 29, 2009. It has been a very painful and traumatic experience that I have been left with these young kids to look after, with the help of my siblings. Since then, I have not been able to write anything new because I am still trying to come to terms with what has happened. We lived together for seven years and I cherished the experience and memory of our relationship. Losing one’s spouse is probably the most difficult thing you can wish for.

“I have not been able to travel out as I usually do because when I have something to write, I usually travel out. Now I am mostly at home and I believe with time, I will be able to overcome it. For the kids, it has also been a very difficult time.

They ask questions that I can’t answer. They have no idea what death is all about. They have been told mummy has gone to heaven

Adinoyi and his children Asuku, Ebikere and niece Zulaiha

coming to terms with what had happened. It was in my head until last year when I sat down for about a month to put it down.”

The book is on the last minutes of Ken Saro-Wiwa before he was hanged. It is a satirical re-enactment of his moments at the hangman’s workshop, throwing up a lot of social issues for the reader to reflect on. The intriguing thing about the book was how close the character, Kenule, was compared to the activist in real life.

“It came from my chanced encounter with Ken Saro-Wiwa before I travelled out of the country in 1988.

I was doing a biography on former President Olusegun Obasanjo. His name was given as somebody who had interacted very closely with President Obasanjo during the Nigerian civil war. So I called him up and went to see him. He was very warm and he had read some of my writings in The Guardian newspaper. He made positive comments about my writing. He wanted to know the school I attended and I told him ‘University of Ibadan’. He wanted to know the secondary school I attended and I said ‘Lennon Memorial College’ and he said ‘what is that?’

“He was quiet for sometime and later said ‘I wonder how people like you from backward secondary schools will rise to a position where you rub shoulders with some of us that went to good schools.’ He went to Government College, Umuahia and people from those prestigious schools were usually very snobbish of some of us who went to community colleges. But I wasn’t offended by his arrogance. I thought he was a very self-confident person and that he was very blunt.

When I learnt he was killed, it touched me like I had lost a friend even though we met very briefly. It is that encounter and my interaction with him that made me to imagine that this fellow will not go down quietly; that he was going to be cursing, mocking and laughing at people who had come to take his life. I imagined he would be raising critical questions about Nigeria and issues about equity and justice. That is the inspiration of the play.

“In terms of my message, I always say it is not a Ken Saro-Wiwa play. What I have tried to portray is the neglect by successive Nigerian governments of the Niger-Delta and the hostile environmental policies of oil companies operating in the region. I am saying that these two factors are what have made the Niger-Delta a killing swamp. Look at the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the killing of the four Ogoni pro-government chiefs

14

NLNG - The Magazine

P RIZE

and they have no idea if it is possible for her to come back again. Sometimes they keep asking if they can call her up or visit her. It has not been very easy and I hope with time I will be able to pick up myself again.”

He writes non-fiction books too. He co-authored Born To Run, a biography of Dele Giwa; In the Eyes of Time, a biography of Olusegun Obasanjo; Atiku: The Story of Atiku Abubakar (a biography); and The Mbuti, a profile of a group of hunter-gatherers in the Congo.

He is a senior member of the Atiku Abubakar media team. A mind boggling question is what is the connection between Adinoyi and politics.

“These are people I have known for over 20 years—both Atiku and Obasanjo. We have become family friends. I resigned my job with the United Nations to come and work for President Obasanjo in 1999. I actually believed he would do a good job because of my knowledge of him. As for Atiku, apart from trying to help a friend get to where he wants to get to, I also believe that if he gets there, he will surround himself with bright individuals who will make things happen. It is out of conviction. A lot of my friends curse me out each time they see me with them.

Deep down, I actually feel the people I associate with mean well. It was out of fidelity to friendship. It is not about money. That is not my motivation.”

Adinoyi was the managing director of Daily Times of Nigeria Plc where he turned the company around for sales. He feels that one important gain after Daily Times is that of leadership.

Adinoyi teaches Media Arts at the University of Abuja and is also a farmer. He owns a farm outside Abuja city.

He is a collector of arts which is also a source of inspiration.

“They are beautiful objects and every writer wants to be surrounded by beauty either in nature or as recreated by other artists.”

Wherever the wind takes him in the contention for the literature prize, Adinoyi says his family is number one on the list of his priorities.

“I will like my kids to remember me as a very caring, loving, hard working father and an upright Nigerian who is ready to make sacrifice no matter what it takes to make them happy.“

T HE

T HE

N IGERIA N

P RIZE

HALL S

OF

FAME

Their labours, not in vain

By Elkanah Chawai

G

reat cultures celebrate those who have brought glory, honour and recognition to its people. They are revered and their works reverberate through different eras, etched in stone and undying in memory.

On the event of Nigeria’s Independence Golden Jubilee celebrations, Nigeria LNG Limited, in partnership with the Nigerian Academy of Sciences, the Nigerian Academy of Letters and the National Gallery of Art will be honouring 28 leading lights of science and letters in Nigeria who have made great accomplishments in their fields with even greater impact on Nigerians. They are also recognised for putting Nigeria on the world science and literary map. They can’t be forgotten in a hurry.

They will be inducted to The Nigerian Hall of Fame for Science and The Nigerian Hall of Fame for Letters at the 7th Grand Award Night on October 9, 2010.

The decision to honour these eminent compatriots was a culmination of three months of extensive consultations and scrutiny by eminent panellists empowered by The Nigerian Academy of Science and The Nigerian Academy of Letters.

The science panel was led by the President, The Nigerian Academy of Science, Prof. Oye Ibidapo-Obe and the letters panel,

by Prof. Romanus Egudu, President of The Nigerian Academy of Letters. Other members are Prof Ekanem Braide, former ViceChancellor Cross River University of Technology; Sunday Bwala, professor of Neurology, University of Maiduguri; Prof. Emeritus Ayo Banjo, two-time Vice Chancellor of University of Ibadan and Pro-Chancellor of University of Ilorin and renowned author, Prof.

Zaynab Alkali. Here are brief profiles of our 28 leading lights.

Nigerian Hall of Fame for Science Adenike Abiose (1943— )

A professor of ophthalmology and once a director of the National Eye Centre in Kaduna, Nigeria, Abiose worked with other professional colleagues for several years in the operational use of Mectizan for Onchocerciasis control. She was later awarded the Mectizan® Award in 2003 for commitment to Onchocerciasis (River Blindness) control at the national and international level.

She has been involved in the work of the Nigerian National Blindness Prevention

Programme, National Onchocerciasis Control Programme, the Onchocerciasis Control Programme in West Africa, the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.

Oluwafeyisola Sylvester Adegoke (1937— )

He is an adept and versatile geologist with unshakable background in biological and physical sciences. He is known for his research work on bituminous sands in Southern Nigeria. Adegoke contributed to the development of science in the country, serving in different technical and administrative capacities that championed his area of forte, geology.

He is a founding member of the Nigerian Academy of Science, Nigeria Science Association and served as editor of the Journal of Mining and Geology.

Oladipo Olujimi Akinkugbe (1937— )

Akinkugbe pursued vigorously a career in tropical medicine and became a professor at age 35 , the youngest among his stock in Africa in 1968. Since then, he has made monumental contributions to medicine especially in the area of NLNG - The Magazine

15

T HE

N IGERIA T HEN PHALL RIZE S

management of hypertension. He has published, edited and authored numerous theses, books, journals and reports on high blood pressure, hypertension, stroke control, cardiovascular disease and kidney.

Gordian O. Ezekewe (1929—1997)

Ezekwe was popular for his research on product development and his inventions in the 1960s and 1970s. He has been described as one with a neversay-die entrepreneurial and inventiveness spirit. He is also renown for his outstanding promotion of science and technology education. He served as the Minister of Science and Technology under General Ibrahim Babagida’s administration in 1989. He was pioneering chief executive of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI).

Thomas Adeoye Lambo (1923—2004)

Lambo was the first western trained psychiatrist in Nigeria and Africa as a whole. He became famous for his work in ethno-psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology. He formulated a combination of western psychiatry and traditional, religious and native techniques and herbs to treat mental illness and introduced the Village Care System in psychiatry. At Aro village, where he started his own treatment services, he invited few traditional healers from different parts of Nigeria as healers to help administer treatment. His contributions earned him the position of Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organisation in 1973, an OBE in 1962 and the Haile Sellasie Research Award in 1977.

Samuel Layinka Ayodeji Manuwa (1903—1977)

The history of medical sciences in Nigeria can’t be complete without the mention of Samuel Layinka Ayodeji Manuwa. As a promising student in the university, he received prominent awards at the University of Edinburgh. He was awarded the Robert Wilson Memorial Prize in Chemistry and the Welcome Prize in Medicine.

He was not just a pioneering Nigerian surgeon but an acclaimed skillful one at that. He invented an excision knife to treat tropical ulcers and contributed immensely to the establishment of the University College Hospital, Ibadan, the first medical school in Nigeria. He has served in various administrative positions including the Inspector General of Medical Services.

Idris Mohammed (1942— )

Professor Idris Mohammed is a key figure in the medical sciences sector in Nigeria. His footprints are most visible in the area of immunology. He was always in the headlines for his fight against immunisable diseases like meningitis, measles, cholera and polio. He was chair of the National Programme of Immunisation (NPI) board. At University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH), he was one of the pioneer researchers into HIV. He is being recong-

16

NLNG - The Magazine

OF

FAME

ised for his original work in the development of polyvalent vaccine against meningococcal meningitis in Nigeria.

Chike Obi (1921—2008)

There is no way anyone can disassociate Mathematics in Nigeria from Professor Chike Edozien Umezei Obi. He was the first Nigerian to bag a PhD in Mathematics.

He established the Nanna Institute for Scientific Studies, Onitsha, in present day Anambra State and in 1997 worked to contribute to finding a solution to the four-century old mathematical puzzle known as Fermat’s theorem.

He also won the globally-renowned Sigvard Ecklund Prize for original work in differential equation from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics. He died on March 13, 2008. He is admitted for his monumental contribution to area of modelling with second order non-linear differential equations.

Ifedayo Oladapo (1932—2010)

Professor Ifedayo Olawole Oladapo acquired his B.Sc degree in Civil Engineering with First Class honours in University of St Andrews in Scotland, winning the Gold Medal for the best student in civil engineering in 1959. After making impact in the Danish construction industry, Oladapo returned to Nigeria to actively participate in the design and construction of many concrete structures in Nigeria which he is recognised for. He was admitted into the Hall of Fame for Science and Technology in New York; made a Fellow and elected VicePresident of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Engineering in Zurich; Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers in London; and Consultant to UNESCO in Engineering Education.

He is admitted for his contribution to growth of civil and structural engineering in Nigeria. He died in 2010.

Sanya Onabamiro

Professor Sanya Onabamiro of the University of Ibadan is the most significant reference on the solution to guinea worm in Nigeria. As early as in the 1950s, he had set out a blueprint for the complete eradication of the scourge in the country and Africa as a whole.

He is honoured for his work on taxonomy and life cycle of Cyclops vectors of guinea worm disease, which formed the basis for development of strategies for the parasites’ eradication.

Benjamin Olukayode Osuntokun (1935—1995)

Neurologist of international repute, Professor Osuntokun was Professor of Medicine, University of London, and the Royal Post

T HE

N IGERIA T HEN PHALL RIZE S

Graduate Medical School and Consultant Neurologist, Hammersmith Hospital, 1978-79. He became Chief Medical Director, University College Hospital, Ibadan in 1985. He was a member of several Pan African and International associations on Neuro-Sciences in 1982. He is published in Law and Psychiatry in 1986. He is admitted in recognition of his contribution to his pioneering work in neurology in the country.

Victor A. Oyenuga (1917—2010)

Professor Oyenuga was the first African in black Africa to obtain a PhD and later, D.Sc degree in the fields of Agricultural Sciences. He made pioneering and notable contributions to Nigerian agricultural science generally, being the first Nigerian to lay the foundation of modern scientific teaching and research laboratories in agriculture at the university level. More specifically, he made significant contributions in areas relating to the systematic elucidation of the nature, composition and utilisation (by man and livestock), tropical foods and feeding-stuffs, the rapid improvement of tropical livestock industry and on the productivity, chemistry, nutritive value and animal utilisation of pastures and individual pasture component.

Umaru Shehu (1930— )

Professor Shehu has spent most of his life championing immunisation, fighting childhood diseases and extending the frontiers of community health in the country. He is one of the pioneering academicians and practitoners in medical science and famous for his role in stemming poliomyelitis in Nigeria in addition to his extensive studies on the eradication of polio. He had served in various top administrative positions in the academia.

Olikoye Ransome-Kuti (1927— 2003)

A paediatrician and activist, Professor Ransome-Kuti was a popular health minister who contributed immensely to primary healthcare in Nigeria.

He was minister until 1992, when he became a World Health Organisation (WHO) executive. He held various teaching positions. In 1986, he won the Leon Bernard Foundation Prize, and in 1990, the Maurice Pate Award.

Hall Of Fame For Letters Chinua Achebe (1930— )

A novelist, an essayist, a broadcaster and teacher, Chinua Achebe is one of the greatest storytellers of all time not only in Nigeria but in Africa. His writing is deeply rooted in the culture and traditions of his origin, moulding his own literary language peculiar to him alone. Achebe’s own literary language is Standard English blended with pidgin, Igbo vocabulary, proverbs, images and speech patterns. He is famous for his book, Things Fall Apart, a book he wrote in 1958.

In all his books, he has made Africa proud by bringing indigenous culture to the world. He also

OF

FAME

promoted African writers by founding the African Writers Series.

Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi (1929— )

Academic, administrator and educationist, Professor Ade Ajayi is unquestionably one of Africa’s finest historians. A founder member of the “Ibadan” School of Histography, he was vice-chancellor, University of Lagos, 1972-78 and Wiles Lecturer, Queen’s University of Belfast, United Kingdom, 1987. He was also a member of the Council of the United Nation’s University, 1974-80.

His Milestones in Nigerian history remains a cardinal reference point for African historians. He was awarded the NNOM in 1986.

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938-1997)

Fela is known as an adept musician and an activist. He is also known as one who was deeply attached to his roots which expressed itself in him rejecting the European way of music when he began his career and creating his own music—Afro beat.

Through his creative and instructive music, he catapulted Nigerian music into the world scene while fighting hard against despotic military regimes in the country.

His music addressed issues important to the Nigerian underclass.

Ayo Bamgbose (1932— )

Linguist and Administrator, Professor Bamgbose has carved a niche for himself in the study of linguistics. An erudite scholar, his papers have appeared in many journals. He is a member of the West African Modern Languages Association, the International Federation of Languages Association and Literature as well as the African Linguist Society. He is also on the editorial board of the journal of the West African Language Association. He was awarded the NNOM in 1990.

)

John P. Clark Bekederemo (1935—

John P. Clark is unrivalled in his power of description of Nigerian landscapes in his poetry. He laid the foundation for the development of poetry by founding The Horn, a magazine of student poetry that provided a platform for many poets.

He conducted researches into traditional Ijaw myths and legends and wrote essays on African poetry. He also contributed to the growth of drama.

NLNG - The Magazine

17

T HE

N IGERIA T HEN PHALL RIZE S

Kenneth Dike (1917—1983)

The world understood Nigerian history through Kenneth Dike. He is believed to have made Nigerian history truly Nigerian, giving for the first time, a vivid exposé of the way trade was carried out along the Niger River and in the Niger Delta during the 19th century and how it has shaped Nigeria today.

Prof. Dike designed the framework for the setting up of the Nigeria National Archives which he later became a director of. In 1973, he was appointed the first Mellon Professor of African History at Harvard University.

Michael Echeruo (1937— )

Professor Michael Echeruo was the first African Professor to preside over the affairs of the premier Department of English in the Nigerian Universities’ system. Echeruo was famous for his criticism of western writers on Africa, as he viewed himself and his contemporaries as writers fighting for an African viewpoint instead of a western viewpoint on the continent.

Benedict Chuka Enwonwu (1921—1994)

Foremost Nigerian sculptor and painter, Ben Enwonwu was perhaps the first Nigerian artist to enjoy an international reputation. He held his first international exhibition in Zweener Gallery, London in 1937 and dominated the Nigerian art scene for over three decades. He was awarded a Commonwealth certificate for contributing to the Arts by the Royal Institute of Arts, Commerce and Agriculture in 1958. He was awarded the NNOM in 1980.

Abubakar Imam (1911—1981)

Writer, teacher, educationist and translator, Imam was an influential man of letters regarded as a founding father of “Northern Consciousness.” He wrote 17 books of fiction, history and miscellaneous works in the Hausa language.

He edited Gaskiya Tofi Kwabo (the first Hausa language newspaper) from 1948 to 1951 and won the Margaret Wrong Memorial Scholarship in 1962 for distinguished scholarship in authorship and journalism.

He was awarded the NNOM in 1979.

Ladi Kwali (1925—1984)

Dr. Kwali was widely acclaimed for her great dexterity and expertise in the art of pottery.

Though without formal Western education, she placed on a high pedestal the age old Nigerian art and industry of pottery. In recognition of her excellence, the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) honoured her with a doctorate degree. She was

18

NLNG - The Magazine

OF

FAME

awarded the NNOM in 1980.

Christopher Okigbo (1932— 1967)

Christopher Okigbo’s formidable intelligence mixed with a vision of a spiritual quest earned him his reputation in poetry. His poems were prophetic and had the unmistakeable trace of classical mythology. His expressions in his poems were deeply rooted in his philosophy of post-colonial African nationalism.

Despite his nationalistic expressions, he denounced the idea of Negritude and rejected an award in 1965 at the Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, declaring that there is no such thing as a Negro or black poet.

Emmanuel Obiechina (1933— )

Professor Emmanuel Obiechina is a worthy pacesetter in the study of African literature. His honours include a Festschrift entitled Meditations on African Literature and an award for “Humanistic Perspectives on Contemporary Society” from the Ford Foundation and W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship at Harvard University. He is also an elected Fellow of the Nigeria Academy of Letters (FNAL).

Fela Sowande (1905—1987)

Olufela Obafunmilayo Sowande, a music composer and a classical pianist, dared to fuse African music with symphonic music. He is perhaps the most internationally known African composer that is wellgrounded in European “classical” idiom and garnered more fame for modernising Nigerian music and introducing Nigerian idioms into symphonic music as well. He has composed several symphonies showing African rhythmic and harmonic characteristics.

Wole Soyinka (1934— )

Professor Wole Soyinka brought glory to Africa by being the first African to clinch Nobel Prize for Literature. A dramatist, a poet, an essayist, a teacher, an activist and a social critic, Soyinka intelligently fights injustice through his work, making him one of the vociferous social critics amongst his peers..

Soyinka has contributed immensely to the development and study of poetry and drama.

His works are being studied at different levels of education in the country.

He is also a recipient of many awards including Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

T HE

P RIZE

By Elkanah Chawai and Yemi Adeyemi

I

n arts, there are no flukes. It’s either the artist has got talent or nothing at all. Amongst those who have displayed talents, there are those who are just in a class of their own—top-of-the-shelve artists whose works are undeniably classics. Ahmed Yerima fits the description.

He is breaking the first record in the Nigeria Prize for Literature as the only playwright that has been nominated back to back for the prize in a particular category.

Like in his winning book in 2006 Nigeria Prize for Literature, Hard Ground, Yerima, through his plays, calls the society’s attention to different aspects of the Nigerian people – their cultures, their dilemmas, their morals and most importantly their history. With his uncanny ability to pull the rug from under his audience’s emotional responses, A professor of Theatre Arts at Kwara State University and playwright of 29 plays, Yerima is one sinewy gladiator for the Literature Prize.

In the

Spotlight - again

‘I like the unpredictable nature of man; it allows me to bring in twists....’

He was not born a gladiator for the prize on May 8, 1957 to Musa and Saadatu Yerima. He was supposed to be a lawyer. But he had a great experience being nurtured by the finest teachers, starting from his parents to his teacher and mentor at the university, Wole Soyinka.

“My father was a police man. He was a very wonderful character. He is old now and he has lost the energy. So all I have are wonderful memories of this wonderful character. He was full of energy. I grew up in a polygamous home.

He was the best constable in 1950 in his set and he was very dramatic. I think I picked some of these things from him. In my early plays, I’ll take him and scatter him through the plays and as he grew older; the stories he told me will be reworded and put in; and as he got wiser, I’ll take his wise words and reword them also. He has been a great pillar; I forced him to read my plays because it took him time to accept that I was going to be a playwright and not a lawyer. I don’t know who told him that if I read law, I’ll continue from where he stopped.

“When I got to (University of) Ife to read Law, I found Ife had over admitted for law. I didn’t have the heart to tell him because he kept writing and referring to me as his dear young lawyer and here I was, bouncing on the stage with Soyinka and trying to learn my lines for Soyinka’s latest play at the time. So I had two fathers, one was Soyinka who was like my mentor and who was putting my feet down in reality and Musa Yerima who was my dream father; who was my perfect man and I think I brought them together eventually,” Yerima says.

Another influence in his life is his mother who he describes as a great actress. Talk about drama running in the blood: “My mum is also a very dramatic woman and you find traces of her in my women. She is a great actress. If she had gone to acting school, I think Joke Sylvia would have looked for a job because she is a brilliant actress and what I like about her is her ability to study and understand when a man is waking up to get what you want from him. That is what she uses now to get her allowances from me,” Yerima burst in laughter, remembering fond memories of his family.

“My family is strong and my parents were a great part of my creative mind.

Consciously or unconsciously, you will find them in my play. You can’t let them go; I mean my mother appeared halfway in Hard Ground. In Little Drops, she is the mother again. She is very solid, you can rely on her. I build the other women’s characters around her; she is my main character,” he says confidently.

Now, together with the inspiration he gets from his family and his sublime imagination and creativity, Yerima thinks the reason why he is back in contention

NLNG - The Magazine

19

T HE

for the literature prize is his style and unique approach to writing drama—making the subject matter a lot relevant to the society.

“I think it is the subject matter. One thing Soyinka taught me in school was relevance. I think that was what won him the Nobel Prize—how relevant was he to the society. When I wrote Hard Ground, it was my first visit to Bayelsa and that was the first time I went on the speed boat ride. As the speed boat went, the water became hard ground and that was how I got the title. It was a great experience to me. The contrast between the life I was living in Lagos and the life I saw in Bayelsa forced me to write the book. I think it is point I told myself that I have to know what to say and how to say it to my people; that I existed within this generation and I was able to tell them what I said about that time. The playwright can’t keep quiet. They have given a playwright different names; they say he is a seer, a prophet but I think he is a story teller who has to make a comment at a particular time.”

Yerima is also thrilled by the human mind, its workings and its unpredictability. Submerging himself in other peoples’ minds, he is able to transport the intrigues of his characters’ minds into the book.

“The human mind; I find it full of intrigues. Man is such a wonderful tool created by God. Man is the only thing that you’ll never be able to find out. You can open up a TV set and find out how it’s been fixed but I guess the best surgeon would open up a human being and not know the last thing the person thought about before he went to sleep. And I like that. I like the unpredictable nature of man and that allows me to bring in a twist into most of the play.

“That’s why when I was commissioned to write about Oba Ovonramwen, I wasn’t interested about his wealth or his strength; I was interested about his mind, a man whose chiefs have just killed a white man and knows that the white people are coming to invade Benin and that they were going to bond them to slavery. The kind of magic I like is what was going on in his mind,” he adds.

Another thing to Yerima’s work is bringing the characters in the play to life.

“I watch Yoruba films because they are comfortable with the materials they use. They create human beings that, for me, are very believable, and they create human beings that I can relate to and I can see next door. If I can’t create characters that can be recognisable next door, then they don’t exist.

“I think in my citation the year I won the prize, Professor Ayo Banjo said my characters are like those who live next door and for me even if I didn’t win that year, he had said what I wanted to hear. That’s what I like about characters being created and that is the key to my work.”

Guessing Ahmed’s origin at first contact will be difficult. Musa Yerima hails from Biu in Bornu State and Ahmed was born in Lagos. However, Ahmed speaks Yoruba fluently that will give him away easily as one from that culture. Ahmed is only a stickler for culture.

He is a genteel artist with a knack for bringing cultures to life on stage. He was the Artistic Director, cultural opening ceremony at the Abuja CHOGM in 2003. He was credited for staging one of the biggest cultural acts and he lends his experience to create a colourful jambo-

20

NLNG - The Magazine

P RIZE

ree at the Abuja Carnival.

He has been at the helms of affairs since it started in 2005.

“What my participation in CHOGOM did for me was get me to know Nigeria. In fact, I had said at 50, I’ll no longer claim state. I went round the whole country. I worked with all their cultures. I know I had a little recognition; unfortunately almost all the chiefs and emirs who knew me by name have died off which is painful; I think the last of them in Oshogbo died recently. But the beauty was that I was exposed to all these cultures and as a cultural officer, I was now able to write plays for them. I understood the meaning of cultural diversity and I understood also oneness in cultural diversity. I was able to write Ibo, Yoruba, Esan, Igala and Hausa plays.”

Thus, culture has had a great impact on his writing.

Most of his stories are centred on the fulcrum of Nigerian cultures.

“Family means strength. It shows what the man is; what he is capable of and who he is. I love also the closeknit family. Family is branches of who you are and what you also impact on those children.”

The play Little Drops was inspired by women and children.

“Little Drops came when I was watching television.

I saw the women in Afghanistan, Liberia, and New Orleans. I saw that in all these disasters, it is women and children who suffer. I started to wonder that I have written quite a lot of things but I have not looked at the women and children. I had written Hard Ground and in the book, I had looked at the fear the crises in the NigerDelta will have on the family.

“I was afraid that parents will eat up children and children will eat up parents in terms of killing ourselves and lack of trust. But I didn’t even look at the plight. I was reading the Tell magazine and I saw bombings of school children in different areas and I said there was a need for someone to talk about this.

“About the time, I was in charge of the Abuja Carnival and we went to Yenagoa. When we got there, we saw a painting in front of the theatre. It was three elderly men backing the viewer. For you to appreciate a work of art, the subject of the painting will have to face you but this is the first time I will have to appreciate a painting of people backing the viewer. It did a lot to me. What it was trying to say is that we kill ourselves and the elders have given up on us. These were the things that led me to write Little Drops.”

It can be tricky describing Ahmed Yerima. You really don’t know which one comes first—as a teacher or as a playwright. He currently heads the Theatre Arts Department at the Kwara State University.

“I’ve always loved teaching even when I was in government. I taught at the University of Lagos. Teaching is

Yerima and his children Kudirat and Abdul-Malik

good. I love the feeling of being in a classroom, talking and have people listen to you. What I discovered was that in the 18 years, I’ve gathered so much information and gathered so many experiences, I felt there was a need for me to impart this knowledge.”

And when he is not writing or teaching, he watches movies.

Yerima believes a good writer needs to have something to say and the raw talent to say it.“You need to have a gift and a flair for it. The major thing is allowing your works to mature. First, pick a good story; know that you are a story teller, not just a critic. I believe that the play has to be that critical, yet entertaining and relevant.

It has to have a story that people can take away from the pages or from the stage. And the grammar; I think there is a need to write very simple English. Then, discuss with people,” words of a true teacher.

Asked what he would love to be remembered for, Yerima says “I actually want to be remembered for the man who won back-to-back the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature on drama. That will make the younger generation look at drama from a different point of view.”

October 9, 2010 will surely tell.

T HE

tribute A

E s i a b a I r o b i (1960-2010)

By Prof Isidore Diala

‘His life was a restless and audacious search for new horizons’

T

he distinguished Nigerian playwright, poet, stage director, actor, literary theorist and scholar, Esiaba Irobi, decorated as his career was, never got the full recognition that he eminently deserved. He shared not only the unusual gifts and temperament but also the fate of some of the master spirits of the race. Educated at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), the University of Sheffield and the University of Leeds, both in England, Irobi’s specialisation was in Drama, Film and Theatre Studies. A consummate theatre practitioner and astute scholar, Irobi at various times taught at UNN, the University of Leeds, and the Liverpool J. Moores University in England, New York University, Townson University, and the Ohio University, Athens all in the United States of America. He was on a Fellowship at Freie University, Berlin, Germany, at the time of his death on May 3, 2010. Irobi’s life was a restless and audacious search for new horizons.

P RIZE

The sheer magnitude of the Irobi oeuvre is a tribute to a life of industry, devotion and tenacity. His published plays include: The Colour of Rusting Gold (1989), Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh (1989), Hangmen Also Die (1989), Nwokedi (1991), The Other Side of the Mask (1999), The Fronded Circle (1999), and Cemetery Road (2009). At the time of his sudden death, he was also working on the final drafts of many other plays, several of which were in fact already in press: Sycorax (initially titled The Shipwreck, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Theater, USA), Foreplay (commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre, London, England), What Songs Do Mosquitoes Sing, I Am the Woodpecker that Terrifies the Trees, Zenzenina, The Harp, John Coltraine in Vienna, among many others. Added to his collections of poetry, Cotyledons (1987), Inflorescence (1989) Why I Don’t Like Philip Larkin (2005), the Irobi canon is undoubtedly prodigious. Remarkably though, mere prolificity was not the ideal Irobi aspired to: there were many completed scripts he never attempted to produce as there were equally many staged plays he denied publication. His deep passion for pre-eminence led him to approach every creative endeavour as a soul-searching quest for ultimately unattainable perfection, a daring for the elusive ultimate laurel. His life was a fable of the steadfast search for distinction and the self-mortifications that quest often entails.

Born on the day of Nigeria’s independence, 1 October, 1960, Irobi interpreted that striking coincidence in terms of a destiny shared with the Nigerian nation, a destiny of agony and pain. In 1989, he told an interviewer: “The historical rigor mortis and political epilepsy of the country itself has left cracks on the mirror of the mind. Whatever has happened to the country has happened to me…”

Irobi’s diagnosis of the cause of that “political epilepsy” locates it in the corruption of the Nigerian leadership — politicians and soldiers alike. Consequently, his continuing theme has been the frustration and marginalisation of even the most-gifted Nigerian youth; he has been equally fascinated by the psychopathology of dispossession and its violent manifestations. Irobi’s signal insight is that even for the humane and the enlightened, material dispossession erodes a balanced personality by destroying personal integrity and self-worth. Contending that material dispossession induces mental possession, Irobi sees terror as a vocation that enhances self-esteem and moreover confronts society with

NLNG - The Magazine

21

T HE

its own violation of the norms it seems to support. He apparently endorses Fanon whose canonical work, The Wretched of the Earth, he refers to in Hangmen Also Die, self-consciously framing a comparison with his postulations. Yet Irobi’s work is also an interrogation and modification of the Fanonian insight on the attainment of inner unity in violent action. If Irobi reveals terror as a mask worn by the oppressed to confront a society whose hostility emasculates and demeans them, he equally argues that that mask is invariably the mask of madness. His despair is the power of social dispossession to reduce its victims to mere fury and rage. Irobi’s ideal is the reconciliation of purposeful revolutionary zeal with selfless social commitment.

Like his sustained negotiations of Fanon and Karl Marx, Irobi’s discipleship to Wole Soyinka had a profound impact on his art. In The Colour of Rusting Gold, Irobi is fascinated by Igbo concepts of liminality and divination as well as the dangers to the life of ritualised piety. However, in much of his work since the publication of Nwokedi in 1991, Irobi’s much more politically pronounced theme is explored against the backdrop of a ritual symbolism that evokes the typical atmosphere of Soyinka’s tragic drama. Guided by Soyinka’s example, Irobi seeks in his own Igbo cultural background enabling myths to comprehend life’s abiding mysteries; advancing insights deriving from Soyinka’s formulations rooted in Yoruba theatre, Irobi makes the theatrical basis of his typically challenging corpus the dramaturgy of Igbo ritual performances: propitiatory, divinatory, funerary and regenerative rites.

But in transforming the enchanted figures of Igbo myths and legends – Amadioha, the thunder-throwing god of the sky, Agwu, the deity of contradictions, Ala, the Earth goddess or their avatars or protégés—into characters in his elemental drama reminiscent of the Greeks’ and Soyinka’s, Irobi also characteristically points to central human dilemmas beyond explicit political frameworks, integral instead with the timeless vision of tragedy. In his entire oeuvre, his iconoclastic recuperation of Igbo myths and expansion of ritual to facilitate essentially political projects in contemporary society do not only foreground a specifically Igbo theatre/ tragedy but also set in relief his own audacious innovativeness. His inclination is always to formulate an alternative literary tradition and worldview by transforming Igbo cultural experience into paradigms potentially applicable to a wider humanity.

In Nwokedi (indebted to Soyinka’s The Strong Breed and Death and the King’s Horseman) Irobi appraises the relevance of a traditional festival for communal expiation of guilt, the Ekpe, in the context of contemporary political corruption; exploring Igbo funerary music in The Fronded Circle and meditating on a demonstrably Igbo concept of the relationship between the arts, religion and society in The Other Side of the Mask, Irobi dramatises typical post-colonial themes: oppression, migration and cultural alienation, identity crises, revolutionary violence, a revalidation of indigenous traditions, interrogation of colonial stereotypes; Cemetery Road plays dangerously between the sacred and the profane, the macabre and the hilarious and attempts to appropriate the total resources of the theatre, ancient and modern, African and Western.

The forthcoming play, Sycorax, is a provocative ideological adaptation of Shakespeare’s much-travelled play,

22

NLNG - The Magazine

P RIZE

The Tempest, highlighting undertextualised Africanist and feminist perspectives. Exemplifying post-colonial drama’s interrogation of the representational biases of Western drama as well as its syncretic nature, Sycorax in filling in the gaps in Shakespeare’s narrative is typically iconoclastic, audacious, innovative, controversial, or simply Irobisque. Yet, I believe, the play Irobi would want us to remember him especially for is The Other Side of the Mask.

In a deeply moving tribute read at Irobi’s grave side at Amapu Igbengwo Umuakpara Osisioma Ngwa in Abia State, Nigeria, on 16 July 2010, his friend and colleague, Eni-Jones Umuko, called Irobi the most vociferous voice of his generation in the theatre. He also identified Irobi as “a very consummate actor who acted very passionately with a Stanislavskian emotional intensity that he holds under very tight control with a Brechtian discipline that gives him the persona of a Grotowskian mask, giving his acting a trancelike quality.” Umuko recalled also that Irobi craved for awards for his works and had argued fiercely when his work was denied the Association of Nigerian Authors’ (ANA) Drama Prize in 1985. Irobi’s The Colour of Rusting Gold had won the National Gold Gong Prize in 1982. But he justifiably craved for more. Supremely assured of his talent, Irobi saw laurels nonetheless as emblematic acts of public recognition necessary for an artist’s consolidation of his self-image. His sculptorprotagonist in The Other Side of the Mask, Jamike, is the representative visionary artist seeking a transcendence of the wreckage of history and the seductions of the human herd through his art yet paradoxically condemned to the judgment of society. Jamike’s self-acclamation is absolute: “I am the next (master artist)! The next! The very next! I am a genius! Everything I touch turns into gold. Everything I create is an ultimate masterpiece”. But with the denial of the national prize for sculpture for six years, doubts assail him and undermine his self-esteem.

Confronting his work in a moment of murderous despondency, Jamike muses: “([C]aresses the works) I thought there was craft here. I thought there was beauty here. I thought there was ecstasy here. Industry! Energy! Sincerity! Honesty! Truth!

Power! Love! And Triumph! I thought there was art here.

But they say there is none. (He covers the works) Perhaps I have nothing to offer the world. Nothing. No message. No talent. No gift. No flint of genius. Nothing.”

This antithesis between a self-schema that is self-constituted and another that derives from external attribution is often the realm of madness. And Jamike runs mad.

Irobi was aware of the politics of literary awards.

Professor Njemanze, the chairman of the national awardgiving panel for sculpture in The Other Side of the Mask, draws Jamike’s attention to the extraneous factors, rather than to the intrinsic qualities, that account for the award of prizes: “You must also understand that simply because a work wins an award does not mean it is better than all the others submitted. In fact it does not even mean that [it] is a great work of art or a meaningful contribution to society, humanity”. He refers instead to the hidden polemic beneath the conferring of societal honours: “Every prize, every laurel, every award has its own politics of acceptance”. If Jamike fails for six years to win the national award for sculpture but wins a major international award at the

A scene from one of his plays

Irobi with his wife

first attempt, perhaps it is a comment on the quality of the national award. In 1992, Irobi’s Cemetery Road won the prestigious World Drama Trust Award in England. By sharing even the epitaph he wrote for himself with Jamike, Irobi privileges that artist-character as a possible studio self-portrait: “’There is beauty in my breast Even here where all things rest I am the flower of the twilight That blossomed in the night” In life as in his art, Irobi expressed intimations of his awareness of his immortality. His epitaph is a testament on the triumph of artistic beauty over even death. In the final poem of Why I Don’t Like Philip Larkin, his last published collection of poems, Irobi repeatedly evokes the myth of the eternal return, itself a myth of the immortality of the human spirit. Even in his mortal ailment, Irobi spoke of life and a new lease of energy that enabled him stage plays, including his, across the globe. In a stunning letter written on July 3, 2008, Irobi gave me alternative titles for a book project on his drama: The African Post-Colony in the Plays of Esiaba Irobi; Theatre, Tanks, and Tear Gas: Sex, Politics and Violence in the Plays of Esiaba Irobi; Taking the Bull by the Balls: Sex, Politics and Violence in the Plays of Esiaba Irobi; etc. He suggested a publisher and even the appropriate number of pages. Irobi was aware that his life and work would inspire tributes and eventually get the recognition they deserve. Posthumous awards are the lot of geniuses whose ideas exist light years ahead of their generations. The auguries are good: the flower of twilight will yet blossom in the day. For the minstrel already wrote his own eternal tribute: his unusually distinguished drama and poetry which with time will become part of the human heritage.

Diala teaches at the Imo State University, Owerri.

T HE

P RIZE

2009

n a g

IN PICTURES

Foreign Affairs Minister, Odein Ajumogobia, greets the Amanyanabo of Grand Bonny Kingdom, King Edward Asimini Dappa-Pepple XI

Former Senate President, Ken Nnamani flanked by NLNG MD, Chima Ibeneche and GM External Relations, Siene Allwell-Brown

Special Adviser to the President on Petroleum Matters, Dr Emmanuel Egbogah

Mrs Aleruchi Cookey-Gam and Alhaji Umaru Dahiru

Information and Communications Minister, Dora Akunyili chats with NLNG’s Public Affairs Manager, Ifeanyi Mbanefo

Keynote Speaker, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu salutes during his address. To his left is Anambra State governor, Peter Obi

Bianca Ojukwu

Deputy MD Basheer Koko, and Aminu Kabiru

NLNG - The Magazine

23

T HE

Literature Committee member Prof Ayo Banjo

Prof Nok lifts his prize

President, the Nigerian Academy of Science, Prof Oye Ibidapo-Obe

P RIZE

Prof Ibidapo-Obe; Chairman, NLNG Board of Directors, Dr O. R. LongJohn; Science Prize winner 2009, Prof Andrew Nok; and Late Prof Ifedayo Oladapo

Prof Nok, Mrs Amina Nok and Prof Ibidapo-Obe Dayo of Ijodee Dance Troupe

Family and friends celebrate with Prof Nok

Ijodee on stage

24

NLNG - The Magazine

Mrs Ugo Ibeneche performing

Chima Ibeneche and Prof Nok

I N S IGH T

Where our treasure is

‘If you know your treasure, then you can look after it’

M

ost blue-chip companies have their top executives on their topmost floors, where they sit comfortably on top of the companies with their army of personal assistants and secretaries. That floor is usually called executive floor and some employees might never set a foot in it. But not Nigeria LNG Limited. You would find top management on each floor, as each General Manager’s office is in the division, allowing a shop-floor management style. On the 3rd floor at the C & C Towers is the office of a gentleman who has the responsibility for the company’s finances.

Victor Eromosele’s career in the finance world started with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in 1980, where he was employed as budget accountant at the Warri Refinery. A chartered accountant with a Masters degree in Business Administration from University of Benin, Eromosele’s’s career with NNPC has spanned some 30 years, 17 of which have been in management positions.

A prolific leisure-time writer, Eromosele has two books to his credit, including the widely-acclaimed Nigerian Petroleum Business – A Handbook and numerous published articles and commentaries. Eromosele joined Nigeria LNG Limited in February 2007 from NNPC where he was General Manager, Finance and Accounts, NNPC-NAPIMS. The NLNG Publications team comprising Mohammed Al Sharji, Yemi Adeyemi and Dan Daniel took him up on what it takes to manage the finances of the company. Here is the interview for your reading pleasure.

The GM Finance, the officeholder, what does he really do?

He co-ordinates five functions. My job is to coordinate the five functions in the division: treasury, controllership - which is where you have the finance controller, risks and loans, then of course the very new function we started last year- tax and systems. And in Bonny we have the General Manager in charge of production acting as a surrogate father, being the most senior officer in Bonny for the team performing financial services function there. So we have five different groups. Most of them are self-

explanatory from their names, I guess.

Treasury, headed by Ken Sleat, is all about cash flows in and out, ensuring they’re well kept and that at the end of the day we have money for our shareholders to justify their investment. We have to deliver value and treasury plays a key part. You can call them the liquidity controllers. Our treasury also is like no other in Nigeria, because part of that treasury is in Nigeria and the other part is outside Nigeria.

How does that work?

Well, Nigeria LNG earns its revenue in US dollars overseas where those dollars have to be kept in secured banks. So what we normally do is that each month, we convert just enough dollars to use domestically. We convert them to Naira, at the best available rates, through a competitive process. In that way, the money gets round and the Nigerian banks get to participate in the process. So it’s win-win for all parties.

With the Nigerian Local Content Act that requires 10 per cent of Oil and Gas Company profits be domiciled in Nigerian banks, how does that work? How do you ensure that you comply?

They’re talking about 10 per cent when 49 per cent of the company’s profits are owned

by NNPC, which means that every dollar that ends up with them actually belongs to the federal government. So it is actually a lot more than 10 per cent.

The money that accrues to NNPC, does it go into Nigerian accounts or is it housed overseas?

There’s only one person who can answer that and that is the person who handles the finances of NNPC. What I can tell you is that NNPC, as shareholder, represents the interests of the federal government. We give our shareholders their money and what they do with it is their business. That’s treasury in a nutshell. I’ve tried to keep it simple.

The other financial bit is controllership, which is now headed by Mr. Fred Asasa. The role basically has to do with, as the word suggests, control and record keeping. They keep all the records, handle reconciliations and so on. That’s probably our biggest department and quite a busy one at that as they handle invoice processing and production of financials, which is what Accounting is really about. Accounting can be defined as measuring and communicating matters financial. That’s a very helpful, simple way to think of it.

Then, of course, we have the risks and loans department, where you have people who look at things like the company’s pension funds and employee savings scheme. They also look after the company’s loans. Here we’re talking about the third party loans we got in 2002 and the BGT loans of 2006. They’re all monitored by the risks and loans department under Laolu Akinluyi. The risk bit in the organisation has to do with insurance. We have significant assets. As you do know, Nigeria LNG’s Bonny site is Africa’s largest single industrial site; that is something we try to tell people all the time because most people do not realise the scale of what we have. You have to know your treasure. If you know your treasure, then you can look after it. So it’s something we should indeed be proud of but keeping it safe goes beyond just conducting health and safety checks. In the event something goes wrong, someone has to cover it. So, insurance is quite key and we’re pleased to say that everything is insured at the most competitive rates in the industry; at least we enjoy a better rate than most of our peers in the Nigerian oil and gas industry, simply because we can define our business risks better, and we manage our risks in very efficient and direct ways. That way, we get excellent value.

Are Nigerian insurance companies involved in insuring your assets? Do they have the capacity?

They are extremely involved. We have quite a number; much depends on the category of risks they insure. The ones that require very deep pockets, even though insured here, still have to be re-insured overseas as well. The most important thing is that we have to be covered so that if things go wrong, we can bounce back. The same thing applies to our ships. You know that as they ply the waterways, they could come into harm’s way, so they’re all covered and that keeps us quite busy. That’s the risk and loans role.

The Finance function at the plant in Bonny headed by Cajetan Igbokwe basically ensures that the controller’s work and the treasury function in Bonny are all well-catered for.

We’re in the process of developing further costs management in relation to the plant so that we can ensure that our plants are actually giving us the maximum value for money. That is still being developed and we’re doing some experimental work on cost management and cost

NLNG - The Magazine

25

I N S IGH T

accounting.

Then we have Tax and Systems, which has been newly formed. As you know, over the past 10 years we’ve been enjoying tax holiday but that expired on the 8th of October 2009.

From that day, we’re now liable to pay tax particularly company income tax, education tax and so on. In the interim, however, we’re paying several millions every year for value added tax and so on. Going forward, under the Company Income Tax scheme, for every dollar of taxable profit we make, we’ll be paying 30 cents to the government. That’s why we needed a department which is headed by a very competent professional, Mr. Akachi Ume. We also have Systems Unit. It is like our consultancy unit, looking at all our systems, maintaining them and making appropriate recommendations for improvements. Systems is an area where we’ve made quite some progress as most routine transactions are virtually electronic now.

So does the company get taxed internationally?

Yes. If you earn money internationally, you get taxed. You’ve heard the famous saying: “nothing is more certain than death and taxes.”

You said the plant is Africa’s largest industrial site. Now we also know it has the Bonny Gas Transport (BGT) shipping subsidiary, a massive investment. What is the worth of the company?

It’s significant and growing. You can check it out in our audited financials.

How do our operating expenses compare with other LNG companies globally?

That’s not an area I want to delve into; simply because every year the league table is compiled. We have visits by our technical partners. They come around once a year. So whatever I tell you now will be dated. But I can tell you that based on the last one we compared very favourably. Helpful to realise that certain costs are distinctly Nigerian. We provide our power, while an LNG plant in Australia relies on the power grid and that takes away a significant chunk of expenses. We have a residential area in Bonny which is an added unique expense.

We operate in a part of the world where there are certain risks, which means that we spend more on security than others would. So there are peculiarly Nigerian costs. And because we have expatriates and we have to Nigerianise, we have to retain the expatriate whilst simultaneously training the Nigerians, which adds to our costs. But we’re doing very well by and large and typically in the top quartile.

You spoke of uniquely Nigerian costs, and we noticed you didn’t specifically mention the cost of militancy (even though you did speak of security). Putting it in Naira and Kobo terms, what has been the cost of that?

That is where we tell a good story abroad. When we see the insurance people, one thing we tell them is that NLNG is in very good terms with the host communities. We do ply the Bonny River but no one has any reason to attack us. We have a business that is well structured and militancy has never really affected us. You know we had a couple of incidents in the Bonny River and they were not particularly aimed at us because we are good to our community which is where it all comes from. Militancy is about asking people to do more for you. In Bonny, we’re doing so much; people are getting next to free electricity in Bonny. I’m sure a grand mother in Bonny gets more power than I get in my own house here in Lagos and I have to make up the difference with my generator. So, clearly that is an advantage. As you know, since the amnesty, there has been a significant drop in restiveness, which is a word I prefer to use as militancy did not exist until 2006 when restive youths brought arms into the equation. But it seems that problem is behind us for now.

Taking a cue from what you’ve just said and knowing that you’ve once been in a position where you’ve had an overview of the activities of the Joint Venture Companies (JVCs) in the country, how would you rate the company in comparison, in terms of costs and returns, even though it might look a bit like comparing apples and oranges?

It really is comparing apples and oranges. You have to decide what kind of animal we are and we’re definitely not upstream. So what you’re talking about, the JVs, is all upstream and you really can’t compare. Their business basically is about finding oil and gas. And there’s a finding cost so they have a different risk profile. You can consider our company as a “gas chilling” business. So our business is to chill gas, load it in vessels and send it wherever in the world it’s required. That means each ship delivers the equivalent of what in volumes would have been delivered by 600 ships were it not chilled. In Nigeria today we’re the only ones with this kind of business even within the gas industry itself. So our business is unique. There are other companies you can mention, not within Nigeria, but outside Nigeria. It’s just that their situations are not exactly the same as ours.

Still talking about impact, what about the global economic crisis and the gas shortage; their impact on NLNG’s business in monetary terms?

At the start of the year, I presented a paper entitled “Surviving lean times,” during which I spoke of the “three head winds” affecting our business. The three head winds are volume

26

NLNG - The Magazine

constraint drop on price and sales of products and the increase in cost price of feed gas, which doubled. So we can’t win, can we? But we survived because of the cost containment (COST-COM) programme initiated. Everything had to be “COST-COM-compliant”. Our MD’s performance contract had cost control in every division’s deliverables. So every division had to provide evidence of cost savings. The result was that compositely we saved about a quarter of a billion dollars in 2009. That made the difference between making a loss and making a profit. So what we tell people today is that going forward, we must continue doing the same thing that took us through. We have to focus on value, do more for less, and our motto is “no budget, no spend; and if you spend, be judicious.” So we were elegant without suffering too badly and we made some money for our shareholders. We could easily have made a loss of at least 200 million dollars last year if things didn’t work in our favour, like cost containment, exchange rate, commercial innovativeness and so on. So thank God, 2010 has started off well and there are signs that we will do better this year than last year. The “year of the dwarf” is finally behind us.

You mentioned that your hosts, the Bonny community, are very happy. What do you have to say about NLNG’s contribution to Nigeria as a whole?

To start with, NLNG provides roughly 10 per cent of the country’s GDP which is great. So as it turns out, the rejected stone has now become the cornerstone. For many years investors never wanted to invest in gas. There were incentives and penalties and all sorts of ways to persuade or compel investors to invest. NLNG story is still a very compelling story anywhere and that has shown in many ways; look at what we do with Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), for example. NLNG had to step-in to provide a vessel, off the shores of Lagos, to provide LPG for off-takers to take and distribute throughout the country. It’s been like a small mustard seed that is likely to grow to a mighty tree.

Talking about investments, let’s go back to the loans for the plant expansion and ships.

What made the company believe that it was possible to raise funds for projects in Nigeria and in Africa?

You make sure you don’t put all your eggs in one basket and you diversify your risks by leveraging. Shareholders started the business and earlier on, actually, lent money to the business; that is a show of faith. When in 2000, management formed the financing team to raise money for NLNG, Nigeria was on the list of countries thrown out of the Commonwealth a couple of years earlier for some of the actions of the military. I happened to have been deputy head of the team working from the UK. We went round the world trying to raise money for NLNG. We contended with “rocks of apathy” but fortunately were able to break them that resulted in a record of a truly landmark financing. The complex deal has 30 financing parties. This was the most sophisticated financing deal done for a project in Nigeria at the time.

Of the over a billion, we raised $260m from African sources. That’s something we’re very proud of. We replicated it for BGT and that sum has been refinanced in 2006. BGT now has a $680m facility; that’s the longest tenured and the best priced in the country. As early as June 2008, we were near to closing a $750m US dollars re-financing deal and we had to pause it.

We restarted in September, but unfortunately our advisers helping to put together the deal, Lehman Brothers, fell out of the sky. So the deal is currently frozen. By mid-December this year, we’ll be loan-free, but when you’re zero-geared that is not a pretty situation to be in. A pretty situation to be in, as a finance man, is where you’re using other people’s money (OPM).

We now have a huge international reputation and NLNG ought to cash-in on it. Opportunity knocks.

Reading through the international conference papers that you’ve presented, you sound almost like an evangelist for other Nigerian businesses to go out and seek funding internationally. Do you feel that more companies are now being able to better access more credit?

What those papers, especially the World Petroleum Congress and the Nigerian-German Business forum papers, are saying is “put your best foot forward.” That’s what we teach our school children. We have defied skeptical apathy and raised funds. We’re Nigerians, so if we can do it then you can do it too. But you have to be properly dressed for international finance.

You have to look good and smell right. If you don’t, you can’t get it. So that’s what we encourage people to do. There’s no philanthropy in this business; it is hard-earned money and it will continue to be so. And a number of Nigerian companies, outside the gas industry, at least four or five, have raised significant funds since, particularly in 2009.

So will Train 7 still be a viable investment, all considered?

If I were a shareholder, I would have answered that question better. But I’m not, I’m just a management staff.

Could you think of a better job elsewhere that you could be doing right now?

Yes. Putting my feet up somewhere whilst someone else picks up the bill. Such breaks do not come easy. We must make the most of the job in hand.

T IHE N S IGH P RIZE T

Where are the seafarers?

NSML

‘The core of our business is to produce seafarers and ship board personnel who can hold their own’

A

nother milestone was recorded in Nigeria LNG Limited when its new subsidiary NLNG Ship Manning Limited (NSML), a pioneering ship manning company in the country, opened shop on August 1, 2010.

Its establishment realises NLNG’s dream of a shipping service and manning company dedicated to the maritime business that will oversee the supply and development of manpower on its ships.

Appointed to lead the new company is Dr Grant Akata, a seasoned and keen-witted manager with over 20 years experience in human resources management. His last appointment was Manager, Fleet Manning Department, a department he nurtured and metamorphosed into NSML. Elkanah Chawai and Mohammed Al Sharji spoke with him on the dynamics of setting up the new subsidiary. The excerpts:

What is NLNG Ship Manning Limited (NSML) all about?

NLNG Ship Manning Limited is a project that is already over 24 months old. The first mention of this was when the Bonny Gas Transport (BGT) Board gave the directive for management to take a review of its process of manning vessels that are leased to NLNG but still owned by BGT. That was sometime in late 2006. I came on to this role in late 2007 and commenced a study group exercise which had about four other persons to review the process of resourcing, development, crewing and management of ship personnel. In 2008, the NLNG Board gave approval for a wholly owned subsidiary to be established to take on full implementation of the concept of managing our seafaring personnel.

What will change with the setting up of this subsidiary for NLNG? The first objective which will be delivered is that the setting up of a dedicated organisation to look after ship board personnel will offer to the business a focus atten-

tion on this group which since 1992 has been a business that was largely handled by foreign personnel. The development is in furtherance of the NLNG Nigerianisation policy which is also in sync with the federal government local content drive. This organisation is expected to rapidly wrap up the business of having Nigerians to come on to manage and run the vessels that we own. It is expected to broaden the activities of manning vessels that are dedicated to the transport of NLNG products to include what is done with our third party charterers. We expect to give more attention to the MOUs within the organisation which drives a process of having a minimum of 80 per cent of Nigerians in the work force in those vessels chartered long-term to NLNG over the next 8 to 10 years. The conditions of employment which are supposed to be used in the new organisation will also make it easier to run the business within the practices obtainable in the international maritime sector. If we are reasonably in sync with what happens in the international maritime industry, it will become easier to employ the minimum number of Nigerians and have a reasonable presence of Nigerians in that industry. It is a fact of life that the Philippines supply over 60 per cent of the work force in the international maritime industry especially at the senior level and they make millions of dollars by way of remittances into that economy from different parts of the globe. Nigeria has a population of almost twice the size of Philippines and we cannot boast of more than a thousand to 2000 ship board personnel all across the country. Where are the people who are going to do it and make sure the business is sustainable if you do not have your own? It is a big growth area that NLNG is pioneering.

Is it necessary to set up a company of this size when the functions the company will take on were effectively handled by a department, Fleet Manning Department, in NLNG? What will be the implication on cost?

That department has had its limitations in terms of freedom to take on rapidly the process of Nigerianisation. And if working through senior management on three boards—NLNG, BGT and NSML boards—everybody has been able to buy into a dedicated organisation for this business, you can be sure that they can not all be making a mistake. In the short term, the department would have been able to effectively deliver that goal but after a very detailed study, we are convinced that the need for a dedicated organisation is the direction to go if we have to begin to make some serious in-road and impact into what can be a very huge business.

What is your brief?

My brief is to set up a very viable organisation and to make sure that from the outset the organisation is a fit- for-purpose group with all the competences to deliver at world-class standard. And already that is in progress because we had to undertake some specialised training or office-based tasks in Europe including attachments to some technical partners and fleet managers. Beside that, the core of our business is to produce seafarers and ship board officers who can hold their own from the early stage of their careers as port engineers and port officers to becoming chief engineers and Masters respectively.

Your mandate is to achieve not less than 80 per cent Nigerianisation of the ship board personnel yet there is little manpower for this kind of business. What do you intend to do with the limited pool of manpower you are planning this company on?

As part of enlightenment for ourselves, NLNG has been in the business of recruiting very young people especially from the Nigerian Maritime Academy, Oron and training them outside the country in UK maritime academies to meet international standards. That whole process has already positioned a numbers of people. But the number will not be sufficient and knowing that you will keep some and lose some, you will need to continue to recruit, train and engage. You will find that our model is different. Normally, you recruit and engage but the model that sustains the ship manning process in Nigeria takes the pattern of recruit, train or develop before you engage. We will continue to do that more professionally since this is now a dedicated business.

How is this subsidiary going to make money and fund itself?

In the short term, like every new business, we do not expect to make profit. Profit is not the driving motive but in medium and long term, it should be able to sustain

continued on page 31

NLNG - The Magazine

27

I N S IGH T

NLNG’s operations – an insight

T

ayo Oginni is Operations Manager at Nigeria LNG Limited., Amongst other things, his role in the business is to utilise the facilities at the company’s plant complex in Bonny Island to deliver the gas received from the company’s suppliers into the three products, which the company sells to its buyers. In his word, ‘this has to be done safely and efficiently’. The NLNG Publications team, Yemi Adeyemi and Elkanah Chawai, recently had a chat with him on his role within the business, his views on the Nigerian oil and gas industry and what he thinks need to be done on promoting Nigerian Content within the industry.

What really is the job of the operations manager at Nigeria LNG? If we look at the LNG business, gas comes in, products go out.

Everything within the fence that makes sure that the process of production goes on safely and efficiently in meeting the Annual Delivery Plan is a part of Operations and is what the Operations Manager does and is accountable for. So the operations manager has to make sure that gas is safely, efficiently turned into the three primary products - LNG, LPG and Condensate. But that’s being very clinical. There is a lot more to it than just that. I talked about doing it safely. That for me is priority number one because we operate a complex plant here. We are blessed with a crop of staff that is very competent and experienced. But you cannot always take that for granted. Those competent and experienced hands need to be organised and managed in a way that they can work safely. They need to have a view of where the company wants to go, so that in their own day-to- day jobs, they can then align their efforts with the company’s vision.

From when you came in 2009, how has the plant fared in terms of asset integrity and production?

2009 was not a good year for us in terms of production as Shell, our gas supplier, shut down their major gas producer to this plant, the Soku gas plant, in December 2008. So throughout 2009, with an installed capacity of about 64,000 tons per day of LNG, we were probably doing just about 35,000 to 36,000 tons per day. Given the challenges we had and which we could work around, we explored solutions to deal with the problem and some

28

NLNG - The Magazine

solutions turned up. For example, the major real exposure that SPDC –our major gas supplier - had was in the theft of condensate from their pipelines. We used to get dry gas from them and they used to produce the condensate separately into the Bonny terminal. The condensate line was largely unsecured and so people drilled into the line and that became an environmental and safety problem for SPDC to the point where they considered it unacceptable for responsible operational management of their asset. So they shut down.

Now, they spent 2009 finding other solutions which included sending us wet gas and we spent 2009 preparing for that eventuality. We are not configured to handle wet gas, just dry gas but we found ways to deal with the situation. We spent time in 2009 getting ready for that. We also did what you will call a lot of opportunistic maintenance. So, in terms of securing long term asset integrity and reliability, we took full advantage of the low gas supply situation to improve that. Anything requiring maintenance for the long haul, we took the opportunity to take it down, because in any case, we were not using all the capacity. We also did a number of other things. Thanks to our colleagues in technology, we realised that we couldn’t continue running all the six trains with limited gas because every train required gas as fuel. If you are running a train that you are producing so little from, you are just wasting energy. So we decided how many trains we needed to run, in order to minimise the use of gas as fuel gas and maximize LNG production with the limited gas available. And we kept strictly to that, so we will typically be able to take one train down, two trains even, if we needed to. We did a lot of work in 2009 preparing for when additional gas will be available. Now we are in the post-amnesty period as well as the coming up of the Gbaran gas field. Today as we speak, we are producing

above 60,000 tons on a good day. All the six trains are on.

Whatever we do, we always plan for turnaround maintenance. But all these have been factored into the business plan. Our system here works very efficiently. We are working at significant capacity utilisation; availability is also very high as all our trains are available. The challenge now is that we have had to be more careful because we do not have the margin for any errors and trips.

One of the arguments, especially last year when the gas supply was down, was do we really need a 7th train?

With the increase in gas supply and looking ahead, is Train 7 commercially viable?

Now, to address the issue of whether a seventh train is required or not, you not only have to look at the supply end which is gas coming in, but you also have to look at the market end and I think right now, the outlook is that if a Train 7 is to be approved today, by the time it is to come on stream, the market conditions may be adverse. Because of delays already incurred, the market we saw several years ago when we were thinking of a Train 7 may not be there by the time it comes up. So I believe that the company has to rethink what is the right size for Train 7. The decision on Train 7 is now a bit more complicated than it was a few years ago. Now, on the supply side, the real challenge that Train 7 faced and that is what you alluded to, was whether government believed that there was enough gas for domestic and export objectives. Government’s primary objective right now is domestic gas use for power generation. It is an open secret that our country does not have the power that it needs to grow on a sustainable basis. So government’s objectives are clear. And those objectives are fully supported, I believe, by the industry. But the challenge has been how you demonstrate to government that there is enough gas to meet both objectives. Now the International Oil Companies have, I believe, done a lot of work to show government that the reserves are there to meet both. Now, the next question is; how do you get the investment required lined up to do all the projects? In the domestic scene, you have to look at power plants, pipelines to take gas there, the gas processing plants etc. and these are significant amounts of investment. And then in export, you look at the investment required for a seventh train for NLNG, investment for Brass LNG and OKLNG. Now government is involved in all of those projects through NNPC, so we are looking at a very huge investment. And I suspect that the money is just not there sitting somewhere for all these projects to be done today. So there has to be some prioritization and sequencing and I believe that debates are going on between oil companies and government to identify the ideal way to sequence these projects.

But to answer your question, Train 7 can be filled and I believe that the gas is there but prioritising Train 7 along with other projects, domestic and export is the challenge, of course, along with making sure that the right market size exists for Train 7 gas. There is no shortage of options and solutions. It is a question of deciding which ones and how to go about them.

There seems to be misconceptions about what the company can do. Only recently, there was a report about NLNG playing a pivotal role in the supply of gas to the domestic market for power. What is the true position of NLNG in the gas business?

What I tell people is this. You need to understand what business you are into. Otherwise, you will wake up one day

I N S IGH T

and first, you won’t recognise your business and, worse, you may not be in business because you tried to do too many things. NLNG purchases gas, repackages it and sells. By its very nature which is why the product is called LNG, we sell into ocean going tankers. And if you look at the meaning of LNG, you liquefy a lot of gas into a smaller volume, so that it can be safely transported to longer distances, over which you would not have been able to build a pipeline. If we can always build long-distance pipelines cheaply and environmentally-safely, there may not be need for LNG. But because it is not feasible to build a pipeline from Soku to markets in Spain, Portugal, Asia, considering the length of pipes that will be required as well as the long distance over which you will have to dig, plus the dynamics of the fluid in flowing gas over all of that distance, terrain and atmospheric conditions, the wonderful concept of LNG was born! So when you then ask; what is the role of NLNG in domestic gas supply? I say apart from cooking gas and the other products that we supply to the domestic market, there is really no other role. The only other thing you can say is that, assuming that because of insecurity in the country and tampering with gas pipelines, assuming we come to the conclusion that as a country, we cannot secure those pipelines, maybe because every time you are carrying gas to Egbin in Lagos, it has been tampered with, the Escravos Lagos pipeline has been tampered with, we can then turn to LNG. Someone can bring a tanker here, fill it up and take it to Lagos. When the tanker gets to Lagos, they can then have a re-gasification terminal. By the way you need additional investments, including a terminal to receive the LNG and reprocess it back to gas from its liquid form.

You can then say let’s build re-gasification terminals in Lagos because it is safer to transport as no one is likely going to mess around with an LNG tanker. That is the only role that I see. If the water route is more secure, then you can have a model where LNG is transported in vessels to points where gas is required to power the power plants. Otherwise, NLNG is a user or consumer of gas much like the power companies will be. So what will then be the point of taking gas only to sell to the power plants when they themselves can take the gas straight and particularly in a form that they can readily use? Our gas, they can not use immediately. Our gas cannot be transported to them inland except via coaster cities. By the way, it is not that easy as you have to dredge the various destination ports for the tankers to be able to berth there as these are not small vessels.

The thing is, I think, all these kinds of things have to be explained to people. I know that people always expect a great deal from companies or businesses and that is a social responsibility that we have and cannot run away from.

It comes with the terrain that when you are in business and are visibly successful, ordinary people will expect so much from you. And sometimes, that could just be exaggerations of what they think your capabilities are and you can’t humour them by getting carried away. We are technical people, but we need to get away from technical terms and be able to explain to people in simple terms, information about what we can do and what we cannot do.

On LPG, the company has gone to great extent to ensure availability and thereby reduce the high cost of the product. The current model whereby a mother vessel takes the product from Bonny and sits at sea in Lagos for smaller ships to come and off-take the product from it has been reviewed. The possibility of smaller vessels coming to load the product from Bonny, then go across the coast,

where there will be jetties and terminals and offload directly to terminals in locations across the country is being explored and if this is achieved, it will further reduce the cost of LPG. It has been scientifically proven that LPG is a very clean, safe and efficient energy for cooking, so our company is doing all it can to make it available and affordable for Nigerians.

Right now, the problem with domestic LPG is not the lack of capacity to supply but rather, the absence of the structures, facilities and investment required to take it and push into the market more efficiently.

Some people have argued that all the company does is just take gas, turn into liquid and ship to buyers across the globe, and that this process does not really qualify to be referred to as production. What is your take on this sir?

We of course produce! We are in the production chain because the gas that is available from the supplier is not ready for the market elsewhere. We are in the middle between primary raw product and useful commodity, making it possible for that gas to be available in the other market. So we do something to it, we add value and that is the reason why we can make money because if we were not adding value, the market would have dealt with us.

The gas in Amenam, in its native form, is useless to the consumer in Spain. We own and operate a production chain that turns it first into a mid-product suitable for safe transportation, transport and deliver it in a form that is then useful in Spain. We produce! Let nobody kid you about that.

In the face of falling profits in the global gas industry and the glut in the gas market, how has the company been able to manage production cost?

That is a challenge we need to communicate to our people. If you look at our organisation over the past ten years, we have grown – base project, plus project, etc. So we have been in an environment where we have been doing a lot of capital expenditure spending. When people grow up in that environment, they think money is limitless. Now, we have moved away from that to a purely operating environment where what you spend is operating expedition. Any company that has a unit operating expenditure that is increasing is not a good company while another company that has a unit operating cost that is reducing overtime is a good company – this is, of course, at comparable production level and without sacrificing safety and asset integrity. So we need to always look for ways to keep our operating expenditure down. We need to do significant amount of work on our warehouse to reduce the cost of finding parts and equipments. We need to work on our supply chain to reduce the unit cost of procuring things. We need to look at technology to help us to reduce the cost of operating the plant. We need good people always looking for cost saving and cost leadership opportunities.

How has the Nigerian Content law affected your efforts to drive down costs, especially as regards your efforts to get the best prices for the things you buy anywhere you can find them?

The Nigerian Content law is a welcome development and is clearly the way to go. In the long term, it should drive down cost. It should develop competent people around the industry who are providing services to the industry and because relatively speaking they are in the

neighbourhood, costs should begin to go down. In the short term, we have challenges to meet. There are people outside the industry who think of the industry only in money-making terms, not necessarily providing services.

We have to deal with those people by finding ways to challenge them to add value not just to handle things. So hopefully, when we get the Nigerian content to fully work the way it should, things will be better. And this is not a challenge just for the oil and gas companies, but also for the service providers to domesticate what they are doing.

Nigerian content covers a wide range and I believe that even though there is a strong focus on the oil and gas companies now, it is going to go beyond that. All of the people providing us services also need to indigenise their operations/services. They are getting the support required in providing these services from abroad where specialised management systems are in place: they should now replicate those management systems here to be able to provide the high quality service that the industry requires to operate safely. The industry has a challenge in the short term - how to help these people to get to that level. So that when we say that the quality of what you are supplying has to be at a certain level, you cannot say that because I am a Nigerian supplier I can only do at a lower level. No! This game is played at a high level and we need to get there.

Now, how can we help these companies to get there? That is where we need to invest and where they need to invest too - capacity development and process development.

How do you rate the current level of manpower in the industry?

Let me cite an example here which is my favourite when I am discussing with Nigerian contractors. A few years ago on the upstream side, they were forced to domesticate front-end engineering design, and so upstream companies could not contract out front end engineering designs to foreign companies. A number of Nigerians then moved to start front-end engineering design companies; a number of foreign companies came in to Nigeria and tried to start businesses using Nigerians. What did they find? A key input to front-end engineering design is the draughtsman. For the work of one engineer, you probably need about five draughtsmen to translate some of those works into drawings using appropriate dimensions and all. But in Nigeria, we don’t have enough draughtsmen any more. Now, these companies have had to go to Ghana, India and some other countries to bring draughtsmen to live in Lagos and do the work. So you can say, by the way, we have given it to a Nigerian company, but go behind that and see who is really doing the raw work. They are Ghanaians, Indians etc because our people stopped going to polytechnics. Everybody wants to become a university graduate. So we have an over production of a certain kind of people with university degrees while we have a significant underproduction of the people who really get work done every day. We all need to go back and begin to invest in those kinds of manpower development as well; the trade schools, the polytechnics because those skills are important to technological development. Forget about the engineers and the managers who are the more visible ones; below those cadres are the technicians and they are the ones who make things run. When we talk Nigerian content and manpower in the industry, I always enjoy that discussion but too often, we are looking at the wrong end of it. That is my worry.

NLNG - The Magazine

29

K E Y N O T E

Time to Say Yes to Nigeria continued from page 8

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index 2007 ranked Nigeria 158 out of 182 countries in the world with Human Poverty Index of 36.2, adult illiteracy level of 28 percent and 37.4 percent probability of not living beyond 40 years.

Business Day report of August 30, 2010 quotes the World Bank estimates that about 6 million jobseekers enter the unemployment market in Nigeria each year.

Anyone who has tried to hire employees recently will know that for each position advertised, there would be over 100,000 applicants. This corroborates the World Bank estimate.

What is at the root of such a stark failure in the face of such huge potentials?

Chinua Achebe gave the answer – leadership or the absence of it. The question then is how has the leadership failed?

To be fair to our leaders past and present, they have tried to solve the problems and challenges of nation building. Unfortunately, some of the solutions have inherent weaknesses and have led to unintended consequences.

Others were ill intentioned and therefore there is no surprise that they have hurt the nation than help it.

The focus placed on indigeneship and place of origin in the 1976 and subsequently in the 1999 constitution is an example of well intentioned solution with unintended adverse consequence. The emphasis on indigeneship erodes the right of citizenship and pulls Nigerians towards parochialism and tribalism.

The consequence is that every man and woman, every zone and ethnic group is busy plotting how to get ahead, that in the end, we all fall behind.

The lesson many of us have taken from the present situation is that we must push harder and fight harder to win the right to power or to get government’s attention to ensure that our group gets preferential advantage.

I disagree.

I side instead with the philosopher Richard Rorty’s axiom that the “talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well, is the chief instrument of cultural change.”

Modern Nigeria has offered us a set of hierarchies: North and South, politicians and electorate (the masses), grasstops and grassroots, military and civilians, men and women, able and disable, godfathers and thugs, leaders and followers. In seeking to distinguish the interest categories, each group looks askance at the other, as though any association – any interconnectedness – with other would diminish their privileged positions. We seem to think only in terms of zero sum games.

We must make efforts to take the next step and move beyond these binaries, and this mode of reasoning, altogether. We must free ourselves from this way of thinking by creating a new language, a new set of strategic initiatives, a new set of institutions, and a new metric for evaluating our success; we must cease to be bystanders in matters affecting our common destiny.

Without a vision and a set of values to unite us, we show our special interest colours to our peril. We have carved up our country into tribes and demographic groups – Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Ibibio, Efik, Ijaw, Nupe, majorities and minorities, etc often without knowing the boundaries. – and in doing so have lost

30

NLNG - The Magazine

S P EE C H

the ability to tell a common story about our past or create a common vision of our future.

The fact of our being Nigerians requires that we break out of our narrowness and inspire the country and call every citizen to recognise our collective interdependence.

That would be in consonance with the dreams of our founding fathers.

WRONG HISTORY Most of our history books report that Nigeria is a creation of the British; that even its name and original major thesi national anthem were the creations of British women. The s is that Nigeria would never have happened without the intervention of the colonial powers, which dragged different peoples, kicking and screaming into this contraption and by so doing have sown seeds of disunity by putting together disparate people who have nothing in common but mutual antagonism and animosity.

That is a wrong reading of history.

Every nation in the world came together through force, including ethnically homogenous countries such as Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Lesotho, Poland, Algeria, Morocco, Somalia and Tunisia. It is how nations are built. The world has over 820 ethnic groups residing in 160 countries. Besides the majority Han Chinese, 55 other ethnic nationalities; the United States of America, Britain, Germany, France, etc are all heterogeneous nations.

Back home, our history is replete with conquests and rise and fall of ancient empires, which were vessels of annexation and dominance. In West African region alone, we can count more than nine of such kingdoms: The Kingdom of Nri (1043 - 1911), The Oyo Empire (1400 AD - 1895 AD), The Benin Empire (1440 AD 1897 AD), The Kaabu Empire (1537 AD - 1867 AD), Aro Confederacy (1690 AD - 1902 AD), The Asante Union (1701 AD - 1894 AD), The Kong Empire (1710 AD - 1894 AD), The Bamana Empire (1712 AD - 1896 AD), The Songhai Empire, The Kaanem-Bornu Empire, The Sokoto Caliphate, etc.

The North became ‘one’ courtesy of Othman Danfodio’s jihad. Kalabari nation was forged from conquests with immediate neighbours. I think the point is made.

Compatriots, I urge you to avert your eyes from the current pettiness and see what Nigeria can be. With strong institutions we can mitigate inadequacies arising from our heterogeneous existence, with fairness we shall have little need for cults and private armies, by insisting on rule of law and greater corporate governance, we can bring about respect for life and dignity of the human person. By renewing our infrastructure, we shall release the energy of our youths and promote greater productivity. By saying Yes to the rights of the individual citizen irrespective of origin, we can turn our diversity to a source of strength.

Make no mistake about it, Nigeria is a big country; a huge market. Nigeria has 2.3 percent of the world’s population. the 37th largest country (by land mass), 44th

by GDP. These are good enough reasons why we should abandon our dreams of ethnic Eldorado and embrace Nigeria and make it work. She has all the potentials to be a great country. The possibility of what we could be if we work together as Nigerians is enough reason to Say Yes to Nigeria.

CITIZENSHIP In saying YES, we must resolve the question of citizenship and the associated rights and privileges. So far we have not been able to answer basic questions about

citizenship.

“What, for example, makes a Hausa from neighbouring Niger Republic still carrying a Nigerien passport, who illegally settled in Katsina five years ago to be considered as an indigene, while a Nigerian citizen of Igbo origin (born, bred, working and paying tax in Katsina) is treated as a non-indigene.

In another instance, take a Yoruba from neighbouring Benin Republic accepted as an indigene of Ota and not so a Nigerian who is Kanuri that was born, educated and pays tax in Ota which is the only home for him /her in the country.”

These interesting questions posed by Abimbola Adesoji and Akin Alao, both of History Department of Obafemi Awolowo University, bring home Nigeria’s dilemma over citizenship. On paper, the definition of citizenship and of rights and responsibilities of citizens are faultless and has been so in all our constitutions.

The devil however is in the detail. What the 1999 constitution gave with the right hand, it took away with the left with such extraneous clutters as federal character and indigeneship clauses. The application of the Federal Character and indigeneship principles creates multiple citizenship and multiple allegiances to the Nigeria state, geopolitical zone and ethnic group, especially as they tend to place group rights over individual rights.

The 1979 Constitution from which the 1999 Constitution was modified laid the basis for the indigeneship problems. This is because it expressly provides that in order to enjoy access to positions and opportunities on the basis of “federal character” one needs to be an “indigene” of the state or local government concerned. Being an indigene involves showing evidence of belonging, through one’s parents or grandparents to a community indigenous to a State or Local Government.

Thus, the inability to prove such membership of a group of people will result in being defined as a “stranger” who cannot enjoy all the rights and privileges of indigenes and/or natives. Similarly, section 147 of the 1999 Constitution states that the president shall appoint at least one Minister from each state, who shall be an indigene of such state.

To add insult to the injury, indigeneship is not clearly defined. Like the state of origin we find everywhere, no one knows how many generations is needed in a place for one to acquire the origin. And this is the point of the questions by Adesoji and Alao.

On the 50th independence anniversary of Nigeria, I believe it is time to say Yes to citizenship and to the right of every individual Nigerian irrespective of ethnic origin and indigeneship.

We have inadvertently sown the seed of discord in our nation by focusing on the rights of indigenes at the expense of the rights of citizens. We are better off to guarantee the rights of citizens on the basis of their residency and we will have been both fair and forward looking. Every Nigerian should enjoy the full rights of a citizen based on the laws and opportunities that apply to the state and local government area that he or she resides in; based on the place where she or he pays her taxes. (b) secure full residence rights for every citizen in all parts of the Federation.

(4) The State shall foster a feeling of belonging and of involvement among the various people of the Federation, to the end that loyalty to the nation shall override

K E Y N O T E

sectional loyalties.

This suggests that anyone who has lived in a place for over an agreed number of years, worked and paid his taxes there cannot be discriminated against under any circumstances. I believe that if one has lived and paid tax for 4 years in a place, that person should enjoy the rights of a citizen like any other. We must also ensure that we make the rights of citizenship, indigeneship and residency actionable and also ensure that no one is discriminated against under any circumstance.

I cannot claim that this step, if taken, will erase all the difficulties that arise from our diverse, heterogeneous composition. Yet I know in my heart that if we are willing to drop old arguments, especially those that have become threadbare, we can recreate the Nigeria of our dream. I know that if the law and administrative procedures lead in the creation of nation unity, then social behaviours will definitely follow, and very shortly too.

In support of Nigerian citizenship and the rights of the individual citizen, we need a strong legislature that would make laws to protect this citizenship; that would debate issues dispassionately and teach Nigerians the value of reason and logic over brute force; a legislature that is not a rubber stamp of the executive; a judiciary that could be depended upon to dispense justice; a police that would fight and investigate crime no matter whose ox is gored.

Every time we discussed failed governments, we cast, albeit furtive glances at Aso Rock. The seat of power, as it is called in general parlance has not always been such an inspiring example. But for all its failings and short comings, Aso Rock is only but a fraction of the problem and in recent past has shown a desire to lead this country aright. The bigger problem is the National Assembly that has completely failed in its primary duties namely: 1. Legislators, once elected, are expected to represent all of their constituents. With little debate about the poor state of education or health care, or unemployment, we often wonder who our legislators represent.

2. Legitimisation is the ‘core defining function’ of the legislature which permits the elected assembly, acting on the people’s behalf, to grant (or withhold) its approval for most actions of the government, including legislation and the grant of money.

3. The Legislature plays an important role in scrutinising the policies and actions of the government, in debates, parliamentary questions and within the influential cross-party select committees.

In sum, the legislature is meant to exercise, on our behalf, the power to check executive excesses and order the government through scrutiny and release of funds.

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria states: 80. (1) All revenues or other moneys raised or received by the Federation (not being revenues or other moneys payable under this Constitution or any Act of the National Assembly into any other public fund of the Federation established for a specific purpose) shall be paid into and form one Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.

(2) No moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation except to meet expenditure that is charged upon the fund by this Constitution or where the issue of those moneys has been

S P EE C H

authorised by an Appropriation Act, Supplementary Appropriation Act or an Act passed in pursuance of section 81 of this Constitution.

(3) No moneys shall be withdrawn from any public fund of the Federation, other than the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation, unless the issue of those moneys has been authorised by an Act of the National Assembly.

(4) No moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other public fund of the Federation, except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly

Nigerians feel that the national and state assemblies have betrayed Nigerians by acquiescing to the executive’s every whim and caprice for a mess of porridge.

They have failed by not forcing onto the agenda the issues that are important to Nigerians. They have seemed more concerned for their remuneration that for the welfare of their constituents.

But its worst crime, some say economic sabotage, is allowing the executive freedom to spend monies outside the budget; outside its purview. Since 1999 when we resumed democracy, the petroleum subsidy and other funds have been spent outside the budget. These are huge sums of between 20 – 30 percent of the nation’s budget. Such extra-budgetary expenditures make the very idea of budget and control a mockery. In the past five years, only once was petroleum subsidy reflected in the budget. And even that was understated: 1. N256 billion in 2006 (N150 billion provided for the 2006 budget) 2. N290 billion in 2007 3. N658 billion in 2008 4. N680 billion in 2009 5. N250 billion already spent between January and July 2010.

Imagine what would have happened if these sums were spent on infrastructure in the Niger Delta. It was Albert Einstein who said that. If you wanted to break new ground, the trick was to raise new possibilities, and regard old problems from new angles.

The more we do of that, the better things can be for us.

The question is: are we ready to break the old barriers? Are we ready to shake off old habits? Are we up to shaking off old perceptions and myths about what can and can’t be done? Are we ready to put our name to an idea and stand behind it?

Are we ready to place citizenship above any other basis of becoming a Nigerian? Are we ready to protect the rights of every individual citizen and the rights of minorities? Will our courts be there to interpret our constitution and laws for the interest of the citizens?

It is time to say Yes to these questions. Nigeria will be a different country, a far better place if we said Yes to these. We unchain ourselves if we do and the energy of Nigerians will build us a great country once unchained.

I conclude by congratulating our compatriots on Nigeria’s 50th anniversary. I pray earnestly for a future we can all be excited about.

Thank you for your time and patience KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY CHIMA IBENECHE, MANAGING DIRECTOR, NIGERIA LNG LIMITED AT THE OCCASION OF THE SEVENTH GRAND AWARD NIGHT ON 9TH OCTOBER 2010 AT EKO HOTEL, LAGOS

Where are the Seafarers? continued from page 27

itself. What we are going to do is continue to develop people and make them available to NLNG business and over time proceed beyond that to servicing similar businesses which you know are springing up in the Nigerian economy. We have quite a number of organisations setting up our type of business. They may decide to partner with us.

We see a future of a rapidly growing organisation. But it is too early to say how much money we will make.

Do we see the possibility of NSML servicing other upcoming LNG companies in the country?

You cannot rule that out but that is not our immediate brief.

Is this company a Nigerian company?

To the extent that it is registered in Nigeria and focused on people development in Nigeria; to the extent that it is primarily set up to take an aspect of NLNG business forward; to that extent we can say it is a Nigerian company with international flair.

It is a subsidiary of NLNG but it is owned by five key players--NLNG, Shell, Total, NNPC and ENI. And you can be sure that if these players have some interest in it, it cannot be a second rate organisation.

The company was supposed to have taken off in 2008?

What caused the delay?

A formal approval by NLNG Board to set up this organisation took place in July 2008. The intention was to do all other preparatory work and start in 2009. That did not happen because the structure of the organisation was of interest to the shareholders of Nigeria LNG. They also wanted shares of ownership. If you have the approval to set up a wholly-owned NLNG subsidiary, you were running a brief that apparently didn’t quite align with their aspiration. A lot of work had to be done through the various shareholders advisory committees of NLNG and this took a while.

What gives you sleepless nights about managing this new organisation?

It is early days to talk about sleepless nights but it is a fact of life that the change process which we are undertaking has quite a lot of different groups of people and departments of NLNG having to co-operate. So, we will need a lot of co-ordination, co-operation and understanding. But there is no reason to have sleepless hours.

Do you have any issues with NLNG seafarers and ship board personnel that will be transferred to NSML? A lot of information sharing has been done since 2008 to date. There are indications that like every change, there are people who are not interested and had indicated a desire to leave but over this period, lots and lots of feelings that this is not the best for them are beginning to fade. Now that we are sharing information on the new conditions of service, it has become much clearer that it is not what people perceived earlier. We can see a lot more understanding but the test of it all is when you make your offers and you begin to see responses. Then you can say we got it right.

Do you see the company as a fully independent company in the future?

The memorandum and articles setting up this company already sees the organisation as an independent one. The fact that it has a parent organisation doesn’t mean it does not have its freedom. It has a separate board.

It has a memorandum and articles of association, it has defined activities and responsibilities, it has a business to do, it has a mission and vision statement and it has values which are not the same with NLNG.

NLNG - The Magazine

31