Allegedly sidelining other members of the Committee, he was said to have unilaterally issued statements and addressed press conferences absolving Dangote and his refinery of any wrongdoing whilst calling for the sack of Mallam Mele Kyari
By Silas Udodiri
Ikenga Ugochinyere, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Downstream Sector of the Nigerian oil industry shares a lot in common with the late Chief Arthur Nzeribe, the Oguta, Imo State politician and business mogul. Realpolitik, a system of politics or principles based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations, is their common denominator!
Nzeribe lost his mother when he was a primary school student, while his father was away in Great Britain studying law. As contained in a story, Nigeria’s Amazing Mr Nzeribe, published in Drum Magazine in September 1972, his care was taken over by Catholic priests who were involved in furthering his education. He attended Bishop Shanahan College, Orlu and Holy Ghost College, Owerri. In 1957, he travelled to Lagos where he obtained employment with Nigeria’s port authority as an engineering cadet, and a year later, he received a scholarship from the NPA to study marine engineering. He took courses at Portsmouth College of Technology and later attended Chesterfield College of Technology in England. By 1960 he was selling life insurance to black immigrants in Britain. Returning to Nigeria in 1961 he was briefly an employee of Shell, then for a few months an Air Force cadet. Thereafter, he worked for Gulf Oil at the firm’s Escravos facility.
One expects a man with this inspiring story would also inspire others. But his image in the minds of Nigerians has remained a bad copy! No thanks for his role in the Ibrahim Babangida political transition.
From 1993 when Ugochinyere came into national prominence as the stooge used by some political juggernauts seeking to stop the registration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by floating a party with a similar acronym, Ugochinyere has wiggled his way into the pantheon of Nigeria’s celebrated expert at realpolitik. A man without any predilection for good deeds, he reduces every issue no matter the importance or relevance to society’s well-being, to an opportunity for his “me, myself and I”.
In the last few weeks, Ugochinyere has hugged headlines for his conduct in the tiff between billionaire businessman, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and the Nigerian Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) over allegations and counter allegations thrown around by them.
With the altercation between Dangote and NNPCL, NMDPRA getting messier with the allegation by NMDPRA that Dangote’s refinery was producing diesel with a disproportionately high amount of sulphur above the prescribed international standard and Dangote firing back that NMDPRA was indiscriminately issuing licences to marketers, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, set up a joint investigative committee headed by Ugochinyere to assess the situation and report to the House.
Allegedly sidelining other members of the Committee, he was said to have unilaterally issued statements and addressed press conferences absolving Dangote and his refinery of any wrongdoing whilst calling for the sack of Mallam Mele Kyari, GCEO of NNPCL and Engineer Farouk Ahmed, Authority Chief Executive of NMDPRA. Members of the committee were aghast at Ugochinyere’s conduct and promptly issued a statement dissociation themselves from his action. They were not the only ones pissed off by Ugochinyere’s shenanigans. Speaker Abbas who had become thoroughly embarrassed by the lawmaker taking a position without the committee settling down to work, summarily disbanded the committee leaving Ugochinyere whose actions gave rise to many innuendoes, fuming.
“Illustrious” ancestry
As unfortunate and condemnable as his conduct is, it is not entirely strange in Nigeria’s political history. Ugochinyere has “illustrious” mentors, men who had trod the ignominious path he is now following.
To today’s generation of young Nigerians besotted with Snapchat, Instagram and other social media platforms where they project false persons and create thriving virtual communities of pleasure, the name Chief Arthur Nzeribe may not ring a bell.
For the politically savvy however, Chief Nzeribe was the archetypal political maverick, a cunning and amoral Machiavellian whose belief in the power of manipulation and money to solve political problems, was unrivalled during his time. Born in Oguta, Imo State in 1938, Chief Nzeribe was a man of many parts.
A shrewd businessman, he had interests in heavy construction, arms, oil brokerage, insurance, publishing and property investment among others.
As wealthy and influential as he was, with connections to many African leaders, Chief Nzeribe became nationally renowned for the wrong reasons, the most important being the infamous role he played in the scuttling of Nigeria’s democratic journey in 1993. After ten uninterrupted years of military rule including years of prevarication by then military Head of State, President Ibrahim Babangida, about the actual handing over date of power to civilians, Nigerians had trooped out in their numbers on June 13, 2013, to cast their votes and elect a civilian president.
That election almost did not hold for two dates earlier on June 10, Chief Nzeribe, using a hurriedly registered group known as the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), had procured a midnight court judge of a Federal High Court in Abuja stopping the election from holding. The court, headed by Justice Bassey Ikpeme, ordered Nigeria’s electoral body headed at the time by Prof. Humphrey Nwosu to go ahead with the conduct of the election. The outcry that followed that ruling and insinuations that Nzeribe was recruited by President Babangida, forced the Nigerian leader to back down but only momentarily. Ten days later, President Babangida would peremptorily annul the election with Social Democratic Party candidate, Chief Moshood Abiola leading.
The annulment threw the entire country into anger and confusion with Chief Nzeribe annexing for himself a place in Nigeria’s Hall of Shame for his ignoble role in the whole annulment drama.
Five years after Chief Nzeribe’s misadventure, a young Nigerian named Daniel Kanu, came up with a hare-brained-share-brained scheme of organizing a two-million for Nigeria’s then dictator, General Sani Abacha. His Special Purpose Vehicle for the cheerleading was the Youth Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA) campaign. As part of the campaign, Kanu, placed billboards around the country, publicized advertisements in the media and sponsored editorials to encourage support for Abacha. Of course, Abacha did not transmute to a civilian president as he died about four months after the march in 1998.
Ugochinyere is continuing in the tradition of Nzeribe and Kanu. As a politician, elected to represent the people of Imo State in the House of Representatives, Ugochinyere’s career has been underscored more by drama than any cerebral accomplishment. After gaining notoriety as the hand hired to scuttle APC’s registration, Ugochinyere craftily wangled his way to the position of spokesperson of the Conference of United Political Parties(CUPP). He used the position to worm his way into the hearts of leading politicians in the opposition political parties including Governors and parliamentarians at state and national levels while at the same time ceaselessly demonizing political opponents. He would allegedly use his closeness to these politicians to learn their secrets and then use those secrets to blackmail them. Sometimes when his caper failed, he would feign assassination attempts on his life both to distract attention from his failed enterprise and to garner sympathy.
Since his election and subsequent appointment as Chairman of the committee on Midstream and Downstream, he has worked assiduously not to sponsor bills or motions beneficial to his constituents and Nigerians at large. He has also dissipated valuable time in poking his nose into matters that do not concern him or his constituents.
For instance, in June he addressed a press conference on the conflict between Nyesome Wike, former Governor of Rivers State and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State. At the press conference, he sided with Governor Fubara who was embroiled in a fight with members of the Rivers State House of Assembly loyal to Wike. His action infuriated members of the Rivers State caucus in the House of Representatives who called for disciplinary action against him.
A statement signed by Rt. Hon. Dumnamene Dekor, Leader of the Caucus, and Hon. Cyril Hart, Secretary of the Rivers Caucus, said Ugochinyere has consistently exhibited a lack of decorum and responsible conduct befitting his high office. According to him:
“Hon. Ugochinyere’s latest intervention is laden with all the ingredients that have characterized his previous actions: blackmail, half-truths, outright lies, misinformation, and disinformation.
“In every instance, his prejudicial media statements also constitute a thoughtless assault on due process and ongoing judicial processes aimed at resolving the disagreement in Rivers.”
The press conference on the Rivers situation is one of the many he has called this year. At the last count, he had addressed ten, in addition to making live appearances on leading television stations in the country. These cost a lot of money. Where does the money that supports these activities come from? These are questions on the minds of many.
Udodiri, a public affairs commentator, sent in this piece from Enugu