By Tony Eluemunor
The moment Senator Ifeanyi Patrick Ubah died last July, I knew I had to write about him – the personable and uncommon businessman and politician, as distinct from the drab garb which media hype, politics, bitterness and misunderstanding had forced on him. Like Chinua Achebe’s Okonkwo, Ubah “bubbled with life like fresh palm wine”, flashing his trademark warm smile, working through punishing hours – night and day, ever the optimist who like a child would stand at the gates of midnight and yet dream of sunrise – as the Australian novelist, Morris West, put it in the The Navigator. Beyond all else, he actually bubbled with business ideas, espying money-minting opportunities where others saw only obstacles. Ifeanyi Ubah recognized neither obstacles nor impossibilities. If becoming wealthy with cash is an audacious adventure, then it suited Ifeanyi perfectly; he was most adventurous, giddily so, boldly so, tactically and tactfully so. Yes, he was kind, warm and personably but when occasion demanded, he could be an irresistible charmer or relentless in his quest and even hard-nosed in execution of his tactics. His aim; to win. Most of the time his major and winsome battle plan was his superior strategy.
Yes, many who knew nothing about him had preached, some abusively, about his character and business morals. Their justification? Oh, Nigerian politicians and businessmen and women have little honour, and because Ubah was both a politician and a businessman, painted him twice guilty. What about the lessons the youths could learn from this primary school teacher’s son, who was rightly convinced that his pathway through life laid in the market place… and so delivered on that singular promise that he became a billionaire before he hit his 25th birthday? What about the inspirations to be drawn from the life of Chief (Dr) Ifeanyi Ubah, a much-moneyed man who after coming a billionaire returned to school and passed his secondary school certificate examination, then contested elections and became a Senator of the Federal Republic? And somewhere along the line, he detoured to the Faculty of Law of an Abuja University to earn a degree. Yes, he did!
Is there nothing wholesome to be copied from the life of this man who, though rich and influential enough that he walked with kings, also remained an unchanged ordinary old time pal to his friends from long ago and from more modest circumstances and eras?
Talk about honour and Ifeanyi Ubah would tell you that the letter “h” in his version of Ubah, stood for honour. So, why the controversies? I asked him point blank during his altercation with a nationally renowned auto dealer, and he told me that he would not play dead, lie prostate on the floor for anyone to use him for a foot mat. He said he had immense respect for those who extended the hand of friendship to him along the way of life, just as he had extended same to others, but that he would not be bullied by anyone. He knew who he was and if he could not stand up for himself, who would?
Ifeanyi Ubah blazed into the Nigerian public space in 2011 when an unprecedented media splash celebrated his 40th birthday. Yet, how many of the people who tagged him narcissistic knew that Ifeanyi Ubah did not plan that media outing but his friends did – just to celebrate a friend or business associate that had touched their lives? He was not even in Nigeria then. When he returned, he was convinced to say a big thank you by throwing a party for those friends; he did throw that party, but he also threw the doors open so that anybody could attend.
Yes, that party was almost unprecedented in sumptuousness but if there was any trait that could have defined Ubah, it was the epic dimension of all he did. Would he build a house? Oh, it must stand out. Ifeanyi was innovative; he did things in new but astonishing ways.
Ifeanyi Patrick Ubah would have been 53 on September 3rd this year. Many knew him as the Capital Oil man, but Ubah had notched up huge successes in various business fields and in various countries that he was truly legendry. To put this in true perspective, bear in mind that he was born in 1971. By age 20 in 1991, he was already a topflight international businessman s as he was already flying out tires from Nigeria to Mali and Ghana and other West African countries. The real spirit of Ifeanyi Ubah, the one that made him different showed this early in his life; he would often identify ways to do things differently. While other major players in the tire sector were fighting for local turfs, Ubah identified markets overseas. By 1991, when the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was sapping life out of Nigeria, the 18-year old Ubah had a business relationship with tire manufacturers across the globe. From there he ventured into auto spare parts sales. It was after he had deeply rooted his business that he bought his first car. Yet, when he died many wrote that he was showy.
From Ghana Ubah moved to DR Congo n 1991, became the President of the Nigerian Community there, same year, a post he held for over ten years. I met Ubah in Kinshasa, DR Congo capital city by year 2000. Prof Sylvester Monye and I, travelled with late Ambassador Raph Uwechue, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Minister for Conflict Resolution in Africa, who was on a peace mission there, and a solicitous Ubah remained close to meet our needs. He spoke French fluently.
At 21, Ubah had built his first house at Nnewi, got married same year, and was doing business across Europe and USA. In 1993, he attended the Las Vegas (USA) Auto Show at Las Vegas Convention Centre to learn a few things about the car industry – as he had a big dream for the Nigerian auto industry. But Innoson Motors beat him to it. He frequented the biggest Auto Mechanical fair in Frankfurt, Germany, the globe’s biggest in the automotive sector to arm himself for his entry into the auto-manufacturing business. That dream died with him.
From 1993, Ubah invested in South Africa, partnering with the Anglo America Corporation and acquired his first house there at the age of 24 or 25. That same time, he had opened a Dubai office. From Congo the restless Ubah made business forays into Angola, was buying fish from Windhoek, Namibia, can beer from South Africa Brewery and freighted them by chartered flight to Congo and from Congo to Angola’s twin cities of Lunda and Luanda. He played same game in Dare Salaam, Tanzania, crossing from Lubumbashi in Congo, to Tanzania. Ubah had Mining concessions in diamond and gold rich Kisangani province of Congo.
He returned to Nigeria in 2001 after his close friend, Congo’s President Laurent Kabilla, was assassinated and dreamt up the Capital Oil idea. By 2015 Capital Oil was relevant enough to unilaterally break an embargo on petrol sales the Independent Oil Marketers had ordered against President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. Barr Afam Iluno and I drafted that proposal to Ifeanyi; to break the protests if he had the means. He had the seventh biggest petrol storage tank farm in Nigeria – in Lagos, Kano, Suleija, near Abuja (he once gave me a tour of the Lagos tank farm, built on reclaimed marshy land) and perhaps in Nnewi and about 500 hundred petrol tankers. Instead of the 30, 000 litres-tankers that Ifeanyi met, his tankers carried 60,000 litres of petrol. Ubah was an innovator. He used novel and creative means to do things differently.
He had studied the oil industry for six months before he stepped into it. He was fully prepared and knew the holes to plug; he even said that he knew the number of petrol stations from Benin City to Abakaliki before he registered Capital Oil as a business.
Thank you, Mr. Daniel Elombah for strengthening the bond between Ubah and I. Elombah had recommended me to head Ubah’s media team in his failed 2014 Anambra state governorship election bid. I turned it down because I was (and still remain) Chief James Onanefe Ibori’s spokesman – but I aided his efforts from the sidelines. Through Barr Afam Iluno (now US-based) Ubah offered me the Managing Director post of his newspaper, The Authority; I turned it down for same reason. So, Ubah engaged the team I had supplied him (of Madu Onuoha, late Joe Nwankwo and Chuks Akwuna), through Iluno again, to remain close to for political relevance, after his failed governorship bid – to manage the newspaper – Onuorah served as MD. When Ubah was birthing his NGO, Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAM) I sat through all the meetings with the likes of his lawyer, Mazi Afam Osigwe, now the Nigerian Bar Association President, Iluno who had been an Anambra state PDP Publicity Secretary and Barr Ben Chuks Nwosu, former Speaker, Anambra state House of Assembly. When I attempted to avoid the final meeting, Ubah postponed it that Sunday from 2pm to 8pm just so that I would attend.
When the DSS detained him, Ubah sent a message; that I should use the things he sent me to write and sensitize the world that he was being persecuted unjustly. I did but refused to sign it because I couldn’t be Media Assistants to him and Ibori at the same time or the speculation could spread that I had abandoned Ibori – and Ibori was in London by then.
Yet, one day, Ubah addressed over 20 journalists in the Authority Newspaper Board Room, saying, “I want to be very clear. I never met any of you before, except Tony Eluemunor – who is a member of my family”. He accepted my stand and respected the boundaries of our friendship.
Please, forget his two private jets, his ten or more crude oil freighter ships, humongous fleet of petrol tankers, a jetty capable of berthing four shuttle vessels simultaneously, 32-arm loading gantry capable of discharging up to 55 million litres of petroleum products, his stately mansions, his Rolls Royce, Maserati and other exotic cars and the razzle-dazzle glitziness that comes with wealth of the stupendous kind. When Ubah died, Nigeria lost an incredible son, a sports enthusiast, a man of vision, a workaholic of boundless energy (who knew neither day nor night but would place his head on a table or a seat’s arm-rest when tired and simply dose off for 10 or 20 minutes while holding meetings in his office and then wake up, shake his head and continue the meeting), an inspired innovator. Ubah’s death robbed the Nigerian sports and Nollywood community of a pillar of support, the common people lost a listening ear and helping hand (his house was always thickly parked with common folks like Nkwo Nnewi (Nnewi’s major market), yes, Ubah loved to be with the people, often just sitting and discussing with his drivers, photographers, tailors, about past experiences, eating with his recent acquaintances and old friends. Ex-sports stars ran to him when they hit rough seas and he never let them down. Often, you would find him playing table-tennis with ordinary folks. Let a wrist watch or phone seller come in when Ubah was hosting friends and associates and everyone present would receive a gift. But against powerful enemies, he was a formidable adversary.
I had still not found the right moment to write about Ubah when within the week, a former governor and South-South leader, sent me a link to an internet discussion thread; it was about Peter Obi and the Obidients. That was when I saw the light; the late Senator Ifenayi Patrick Ubah actually blazed the trail for grassroots political movement of a different kind in Nigeria with TAN. That was the spark I needed…to write about the Ubah I knew.
TAN, Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria was conceived in the heart of one man; Dr. Ifeanyi Ubah. TAN embraced strategic media marketing and political advocacy like nothing before it in Nigeria, re-writing the rules of engagement and furthering the limits of what was thought feasible. In the electronic media, it aired over 170 television jingles over 123,000 times. Over 68 Radio jingles (including in Igbo, Yoruba, Pidgin and Hausa).
TAN went into a working relationship with key Television houses in the country: NTA, AIT, Channels and Silverbird, as well as signing an MOU with National Orientation Agency (NOA). It had about 75 critical interventions in the print media in terms of interviews, feature pieces and opinion editorial pieces. TAN attracted over 5,000 news stories- ranging from sports to other critical national issues.
Yet, where TAN stood out is in the pro-Jonathan rallies it organized in the six geo-political zones, with a grande finale in Abuja. The defining outcome of each rally was the presentation of signatures of real flesh and blood Nigerian citizens calling on President Jonathan to contest the 2015 presidential poll. In the end, it garnered some 12 million signatures of real Nigerians, backed by real addresses, who were urging President Jonathan to make himself available as a presidential candidate in 2015.
That was where TAN helped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the most. Unlike the other 800 pro-Jonathan groups which mushroomed across the country, waiting to be husbanded into action by the PDP, TAN actually showed the PDP the way to follow – to come right behind TAN, which like a bull elephant, beat out a path in the woods and thereby left a trail for the PDP to follow. What TAN did was as audacious as it was novel. The Obidients and other political support groups have a lot to learn from Ubah’s TAN. So, too, do Nigerians.
Yes, Ifeanyi Ubah was an activist, a courageous one. I will never forget Sunday 24th May 2015 – a few days before Mohammadu Buhari’s presidency incepted. Independent oil marketers had on Saturday 16th May, announced that all depots should suspend petrol loading from Monday 18th May 2015 because of unpaid funds owed to transporters by oil marketers who in turn were owed by the Federal Government. Barr. Afam Iluno and I deliberated all afternoon how Ubah should intervene to save Nigeria from the embarrassment of having a nation-wide shutdown during a presidential inauguration and under intense global focus.
We tinkered with statements whereby Ubah would announce he was opting out of the strike on humanitarian grounds over the torture it had caused Nigerians and he would call for the strike to end. Ubah took the statement, a cheeky smile lit up his face and he said, Capital Oil had in storage over 79 million litres of petrol, though its tank farm facility had a combined storage capacity of 190 million litres of petrol with the capacity to load over 13 million litres, approximately 400 trucks of product per day. Ubah said that he would instruct all Capital Oil facilities to break the strike for the sake of the ordinary Nigerians, especially as the nation was preparing to have a new government. He started making the needed phone calls to his managers immediately, disdaining our advice to wait till Monday for the statement to get into the news media. The reworked statement said: “This is a period that requires patriotism and service to fatherland. Let’s join hands to help our fellow citizens and save Nigeria. We also call on striking bodies to call off the strike action. Let us work together for the betterment of our people.” All night, Ubah was the news. The oil marketers called off the strike the following day.
As the Jews say, “man proposes, God laughs”. A month before his death, Ubah said about his coming Anambra state governorship election bid as an APC candidate; “anyi enwetagoya” (Igbo for we have received it). Would he have won? What sort of innovative governor would he have been? Such answers will ever remain among the useless ifs of history. A total and permanent eclipse abridged Ubah’s life on 27 July 2024.
Ubah was the global citizen; at home in Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Luanda, Bamako, Issale Eko or Ajegunle (Lagos), Las Vegas, London, Frankfurt or his beloved Nnewi.
With Ifeanyi Ubah’s death I lost a friend. Nnewi lost a great son whose petrol stations, often times, sold petrol at Nnewi at reduced price as Ubah’s palliative to his beloved home town. Nigeria lost a sports enthusiast who owned a Football Club, a Games Village and a stadium, a Pan-Africanist, an uncommon innovator with the Midas touch whose business interests spanned from oil and gas (he controlled Nigeria’s kerosene market) the mass media as he owned a newspaper and radio station, hotels overseas to other numerous areas. Unfortunately, Nigerians are not about to learn uplifting lessons from the life of this self-made man who triumphed dazzlingly despite all odds. That is sad.
Ubah was a meteor; ever on the move, ever on the rise, ever aglow until the total and permanent eclipse of this determination and courageous global citizen; at home in Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Luanda, Bamako, Issale Eko or Ajegunle (Lagos), Las Vegas, London, Frankfurt as in his beloved Nnewi or Abuja. He not only lived, he taught us how to live – poor learners that we are.