As Nigerians Celebrate Victoria A. Samson for Her Good Deeds to the Nation

HighLife

Who says that women hold the lamp of greatness any lower than their male counterparts? Whoever still holds this view ought to remove their glasses, wipe them, and take a look again at women like Mrs. Victoria A. Samson, the Managing Director of BOVAS & Company Limited. At a time when her peers are scrambling over ill-conceived profits, Mama BOVAS – as she is called – continues to hold on to her business principles.

It is nobody’s fault that fuel stations in Nigeria are selling a litre for between N250 and N400. (Well, it is somebody’s fault but there’s nothing to be gained from pointing fingers.) Some of the fairer fuel stations all over Nigeria are selling at around N250 to N300 per litre. But the ones looking to build sandcastles of wealth and affluence after are selling for at least N350 per litre. From our investigation, the only fuel station in Nigeria still selling at N162 is BOVAS, an exception for which Nigerians are grateful.

It can be seen that Mama BOVAS’s fuel stations are more concerned with the financial situation and satisfaction of their customers than they are with the perverse windfall. Nigerians have reported that these fuel stations never sell above the pump price, never hoard fuel, and refuse to adjust the selling pump meter, which are curiously the new elements of selling tradition in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.

Due to her insistence on the standard price of fuel, Mrs. Samson has won the spoken admiration of Nigerians in and outside the country. This is especially considering the ridiculous volume of profit that her peers are making as they lean on the economy’s instability and milk Nigerians dry.

But one cannot say that Mrs. Samson is naive and does not know how to make money when the opportunity presents itself. In truth, she has been in the oil and gas industry for almost three decades. In fact, she was the first Nigerian to win the Texaco Latin America West Africa (LAWA) Award for Best Overall Dealer in 1990 for the highest sales in both regions combined. Moreover, her ownership of a company that has 119 service stations nationwide says something about her business acumen.