John Bassey Inametti
She has a trade mark look that creates a touch of unusualness about her person. There is this smile that paints her lips in glowing colours in every of her pictures. But the smiles don’t look permanent. Surrounding the smiles is this look of seriousness; or what in the local parlance has often been described as a ‘no-nonsense-look.’ She looks tough and ready to get cracking on issues within her portfolio. But that’s not the most important aspect of her trademarks.
While every woman cherishes long, rich sprawling hairstyles that spread from the neck to the shoulders, she keeps a low-cut. The cut is so low that even in the pictures posted on the internet, it exposes a bit of the scalp. One female commentator observed that keeping the hair low has helped her use the time she would have spent in hair salons to attend to other pressing needs. She may be right. But another, probably a male commentator, immediately responded that women with low hair cut could be stubborn. Perhaps, he is also right.
Generally, low hair cut in women is said to depict stubbornness. And in the case of Mrs Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, the immediate-past managing director and chief executive officer of the downstream sector of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, it is stubbornness with a different meaning. Or what you would describe as stubbornness in the positive. She has been described as a stickler to rules. And she is a lawyer in the graduating class of 1984, according to one of her classmates.
The questions on the lips of those who have been following her story are many. First, what is it about this woman that she has almost become a regular guest of the eagle-eyed Economic and Financial Crimes Commission? In the last one year or so, she has been invited or arrested by the EFCC twice. The good news, however, is that at no time has she spent a night in their cell. One can also ask: these repeated arrests, are they based on hard facts or is somebody simply trying to embarrass her?
Last week, just like it happened some time last year, Mrs Nnamdi-Ogbue was in the news for certain wrong reasons; or so it seemed. By way of introduction, information on the internet shows that before her appointment as the chief executive officer of the NNPC downstream sector, she was initially in charge of the Pipeline Products Marketing Company (PPMC) of the NNPC in the same capacity. In the typical Nigerian reasoning, she was sitting on top of oil money. In Nigeria, oil money comes cheap.
Something curious happened about a year ago that drew national or global attention to this woman. She woke up one morning to see tough-looking officers of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission at her doorsteps. Was she surprised? Available information showed that someone or a group of people had written a petition or lodged a complaint with the EFCC accusing her of building a two billion naira mansion in the exclusive Maitama District of Abuja in less than six months. That was enough to attract the attention of the anti-corruption agency. In fact, it would have been unprofessional of the EFCC not to step into the situation.
Happening in the early days of the current intensified anti-corruption crusade, this was big news; and she was promptly arrested for questioning. In addition, the said mansion was thoroughly searched before she was whisked away. From media reports, after questioning her, the anti-corruption body discovered that the petition was written by contractors who required that she circumvented the rules to award them juicy contracts at the PPMC whether they were qualified for such jobs or not. And because she stubbornly refused to do that by asking them to go through the normal process, they decided to “deal’’ with her.
But what about the mansion she was said to have built? Where did she get the two billion naira from? Also from media reports of the incident, it was discovered that before and even after her appointment, she was living in one of the low cost housing estates in the popular area of Abuja. It was therefore the decision of the NNPC leadership to get her into what was described as a more secured environment, and a more befitting accommodation because of the type of work she was involved in. That means the building was not her own as was speculated.
Credit must however be given to the EFCC for their quick action and professional handling of the situation at that time. It was however believed that there would have been no need for her arrest in the first place if the agency was less emotional about the issue. That means if a thorough investigation had been carried out, it would first have been established that the property was not her own and that it was rented for her by the NNPC.
That was her first baptism of fire with the law enforcement agency. Before she was even cleared of wrong doing by the investigating body, she had been judged and condemned in the court of public opinion. As earlier stated, just last week, the oil madam was back in the news. This time, the news was of a different type. Two incidents actually unfolded at the same time. None was good news; although no news is good news depending on how it affects you.
The first was that she was forced to resign her job as the managing director of the NNPC downstream sector. In fact, part of the news said she was sacked, others said she was retired. Whatever happened, the bottom-line is that she is no longer there. Although the reason for that action still remains shrouded in mystery, it was speculated in the social media that she was actually what the Americans would call a fall guy in a high-wired oil deal involving top players in the industry. We are still waiting for the details of that deal and what could have led to her early retirement from service.
It must not be forgotten that before these sketchy details emerged about her forced exit, she was being bandied in the media as having had her hands badly soiled with a massive looting of public funds. The reason was because of the discovery of about $50 million dollars in a certain apartment in Ikoyi, Lagos. This happened within the same week and almost the same day she was given a marching order at the NNPC. It was a case of the saying that the bird of death cried in the night and the child dies at daybreak, and you are still asking who killed the child?
Again, she woke up on Thursday morning (last week) to see another batch of EFCC operatives at her doorsteps. She was promptly picked up for hard questioning. Unknown to many people, there is nothing to show that her arrest and interrogation had anything to do with the funds discovered in Ikoyi. Even then, her lawyers came up with a statement to debunk every imagination that the money recovered in Ikoyi was hers or had any connection with why she left the NNPC. The statement read in part:
“The attention of our client, Mrs. Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, has been drawn to the news making rounds in the news media to the effect that the large sums of money to wit: $38, 000, 000; N23, 000, 000 and £27, 000 uncovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission from an apartment in Osborne Towers, Osborne Road, Ikoyi Lagos, Lagos State belong to her.
“By this press release, we inform the public (especially the news media) that the said sums of money and/or the apartment where the sums of money were found do not belong to our client. Our client is as shocked as many other Nigerians at the uncovering and recovery of the said sums of money and wishes to salute the courage and efforts of the EFCC in the war against corruption. She also wishes to commend the whistle blowing policy introduced by the Federal Government in the fight against corruption which policy has resulted in large scale uncovering and recovering of monies and assets.
“It is our client’s belief that the source and the ownership of the said uncovered sums of money is known or eventually will be known by the EFCC in due course. There is therefore no need for conjecture or speculation. May we finally implore the news media to be more circumspect in their publications.”
Before night time on Friday, several names were in the media linked to the uncovered money. While some of them denied ownership, others simply kept quiet. In the case of Nnamdi-Ogbue, the public may not only be interested in the recovered money; more importantly, there would be need for the NNPC to tell the full story of why she was relieved of her appointment. Except this is done, the public will continue to speculate.
Already, ethnic colouration is being added to the reasons for her removal. Someone has even reminded government that she, except by marriage, comes from Ibeno, the host community to ExxonMobil in Akwa Ibom State. Of course, there is also a gender angle to it. In addition, if what is being disseminated in the media is anything to go by, why should an innocent person be punished for an offence committed by greedy business moguls. Is there any information to the effect that she was a part of the suspected conspiracy?
––Inametti is an Abuja based public affairs analyst.
