Amb. Dr. Maureen Tamuno, the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, recently hosted a delegation of investors from India to discuss strategic collaborations aimed at driving Abuja’s development.

The meeting focused on identifying areas of mutual interest and potential investments that align with the city’s growth objectives. With shared goals and a mutual vision for progress, the discussions underscored the importance of fostering international partnerships to unlock new opportunities for sustainable development.

Dr. Tamuno emphasized the significance of such collaborations in boosting economic activities, enhancing infrastructure, and creating employment opportunities in Abuja. Both parties expressed optimism about the prospects of these initiatives, which are expected to contribute meaningfully to the city’s future.

This engagement marks a pivotal step in strengthening Abuja’s position as a hub for global investment and innovation.

If bells could ring for every achievement, Jubril Adewale Tinubu’s would chime ceaselessly.

In fact, it has become a tradition that any time Tinubu, the Group Chief Executive of Oando Plc, appears on the scene, the bells will sound impressively in honour of the extraordinary oil and gas mogul, whose impact will resonate for generations to come.

He is one of Nigerian business moguls redefining the tapestry of the African economic sector, particularly oil and gas business.

Many are aware that Tinubu had a background in Law.  But sometime in the early 1990s, the Lagos State-born serial entrepreneur  found the allure of oil and gas so irresistible, thereby making him dump  his first love, Law.

Thereafter, he followed his heart’s desire by floating the Ocean and Oil business organisation.

Today, the business has not only earned him fame and wealth, but has also contributed in great measures to the economic development of Africa and beyond.

Again, Tinubu shone brilliantly during the recently held Africa Energy Week, AEW, which is the African Energy Chamber’s annual event, uniting African energy leaders, global investors and executives from across the public and private sector.

Quite expectedly, all eyes were on him at the recent interactive conference, exhibition and networking event held at the Cape Town International Conference Centre, CITCC.

In a category, comprising other high-profile deals in the sector and across Africa, Oando won the award in recognition of the Company’s recently completed landmark $783 million acquisition of the Agip  from the Italian Energy firm Eni on 22 August, 2024.

The Deal of the Year award, it was gathered, recognises the most transformative and impactful deal in the energy sector – honouring excellence in negotiation, strategic alignment, innovation and collaboration, while  celebrating deals that drive advancements in energy and economic growth.

Receiving the award, a visibly excited Tinubu said: “ I am delighted and honoured to receive the ‘Deal of the Year’ award from Africa Energy Week.

“This award is more than just an accolade for a successful deal closure; it represents a public acknowledgement of the culmination of 30 years of grit, hard work, resilience, and sheer belief in our vision. It is a testament to my belief that with the Humans of Oando, impossible is nothing. I’d like to thank the dream team, the Humans Of Oando, our financiers, and partners for their belief and role in making this award a reality,” he said on the occasion.”

The acquisition is the culmination of a decade of preparation, strategic planning, and unwavering commitment to a vision of becoming Africa’s first indigenous International Oil Company.

This development, no doubt, bears testimony to the fact that the outgoing year has been most remarkable on many fronts for him and the company.

First, the Company marked its 30th anniversary recently. Thereafter, it concluded its strategic plan to acquire its second IOC in a decade, Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) and step up to the role of operator.

Indeed, the year 2024,  has been a good one for the oil and gas mogul.

Entrepreneurial and deal making skills are two special gifts energy tycoon  is blessed with. As a young man, he worked  as a lawyer at his father’s firm to hone his skills but it was not for long as a very impliable young Tinubu soon became restless. Although he was generating a decent income from his small business, the young lawyer was actively on the lookout for bigger challenges and opportunities.

However, the landscape shifted in 1994 when Tinubu and his two friends —Mofe Boyo and Jite Okoloko— birthed Ocean and Oil Services, a small trading company in the business of supplying diesel and Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO) to various shipping firms and offshore exploration companies in Nigeria. Few years into their operations, the three partners bought their first vessel MT Carolina anchored in Bonny to supply diesel to off-shore companies from the Port-Harcourt Refinery. In six years, Ocean and Oil Services had grown its fleet to seven ships.

Within that short time, Tinubu emerged the new face among the oil & gas elite and caught the attention of the business world and piquing the curiosity of many eager to learn more about this rising titan. Tinubu’s meteoric rise is fueled by the massive success of Oando’s expansion. The cornerstone of this success? Tinubu stumbled across an even bigger opportunity when in 2000, he landed a blockbuster deal with the acquisition of government controlling 40 per cent equity in the defunct Unipetrol Plc, an integrated downstream oil marketing company. The three friends made an audacious bid for the company.

For an upstart Ocean and Oil —an oil trading and shipping company trying to find its feet in the downstream sector made the move to acquire a controlling interest in an oil & gas behemoth, it was indeed daring! Stumbling blocks dotted their paths as a result of their youthful age (they were all less than 33 at the time). But Tinubu eventually won the confidence of all the varying factions- the investing public, labour unions, employees and the government. Along with his team, he went to work on developing a solid business plan and a blueprint for the strategic direction of the company. Tinubu focused squarely on rejuvenating the ailing petroleum marketer.

With the gravitas you might expect of a Booker prize winner, Tinubu, two years later, took another bold step as he led the largest ever acquisition of a quoted Nigerian company with Unipetrol Plc’s purchase of Agip Nigeria Plc.

Thereafter, with another giant brand on their roster, the Group rebranded as Oando Plc and today, it has become Nigeria’s largest non-government owned company in the energy industry with a market value soared to record highs from N74 billion in 2023 to N1 trillion.

Oando is one of the many success stories coming out of Africa’s corporate space. With a load of challenges he has had to maneuver while growing Oando, Tinubu, on his part, silently contributing to the economy and cementing his standing among the global financial elite to the extent that Forbes magazine, recognizing his impressive impact, dubbed him the ‘King of African Oil’.

Tinubu’s latest deal marks a pivotal shift in Nigeria’s energy sector.

Last August, Tinubu and Oando recorded an historic milestone of a monumental deal with the Italian energy giant, ENI for the acquisition of 100% shares of Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited. The $783 million deal, sealed and signed at a glittering ceremony held at The Peninsula Hotel in London, cements Oando’s position as Nigeria’s leading indigenous energy solutions conglomerate.

The transaction, first announced in September 2023, promises a brighter future for the company and industry alike.

“It is rather uncanny that this acquisition comes exactly a decade after Oando’s landmark $1.8 billion acquisition of ConocoPhillips’ Nigeria interest, a transaction which incidentally made the company a Joint Venture (JV) partner on the asset alongside NNPC E&P Ltd (NEPL) and NAOC. The ConocoPhillips transaction propelled Oando’s production from approximately 4,500 barrels of oil per day to 50,000 barrels of oil per day at the time,” Tinubu said.

He added on the AGIP’s acquisition: “Today’s announcement is the culmination of 10 years of hard work, resilience, and an unwavering belief that we would realise our ambition. It is a win, not just for Oando, but for every indigenous energy player as we take our destiny in our hands.

“This is a new dawn for the Nigerian energy sector, and we are confident that indigenous companies will play a pivotal role in this next phase of the nation’s upstream evolution. With our assumption of the role of operator, our immediate focus is on optimising the assets’ immense potential in contributing to our strategic objectives, whilst complementing the nation’s plan to boost production outputs.” He said.

For those who think Tinubu is leaning on his political connections with his uncle, Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s President in achieving these great milestones, they need to check themselves or see a shrink. Being a good entrepreneur or successful business owner doesn’t exactly mean you’re a dealmaker. But Tinubu combines the three. In all, Tinubu has exceeded expectations. He has successfully built an empire with a verifiable trajectory. When he acquired Unipetrol’s assets in 2000, very few competitors and contemporaries gave him any chance of success. Now, they take him very seriously. He’s stated that someday, Oando is going to be Africa’s first oil major. It seems like an unrealistic ambition, but when it is Wale Tinubu speaking, just believe as all pointers show that the billionaire energy tycoon deserves and has earned his flowers!

There is a growing phalanx of pseudo-intellectuals parading the social media space with faux and fictitious knowledge of the indigenous oil and gas industry, and it is scary because of the grave danger they portend and present for the average Nigerian.
From X (formerly known as Twitter) to Facebook and even the photos and videos-sharing site, Instagram, they abound, in their inglorious number, lending their platforms to deliberately distort facts and spread misinformation especially to favour the narratives propounded by popular Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote, owner of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
Since the refinery began operations earlier in the year, it has been one week, one controversy allegedly orchestrated by Dangote in a brazen attempt to arm-twist the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPCL, into playing by his rules.
Those conversant with the modus operandi of Dangote and his refinery say the long-drawn warfare with every institution and individual in the oil and gas value chain is nothing but a self-seeking and mindless profit maximisation tactic.
Whilst nobody begrudges Dangote’s drive for profit as a businessman, perhaps he needs to be reminded that the NNPC has a mandate to ensure and provide energy security in a way that is affordable and sustainable for the generality of Nigerians. And, the NNPCL management has declared in very unambiguous terms that it would not pander to the din of the market whether orchestrated by Dangote, his rampaging minions or anyone else.
The truth, however, is that there is an increasing army of vacuous, vicious, and vile individuals strutting the social media space defending and propagating outright and outlandish falsehoods. Of particular concern is one Kelvin Emmanuel who has become the unofficial mouthpiece of the Dangote Refinery. Going from one media house to the other, he pulls figures out of the air and projects obnoxious untruths on hapless Nigerians. With the backing of his paymaster’s billions, it is no surprise that this otherwise irrelevant and fatuous character now commands appearances on major television stations.
But it is on X that he has made lying glibly and gratuitously the Holy Grail. He once premised Dangote’s inability to secure feedstock for his refinery on the government and the NNPCL. While peddling this untruth, he conveniently forgets that the refinery had a seven-year window, during its construction phase, to lock in feedstock supplies that could last a minimum of five years. Dangote did none of that. As it would later unfold, his game plan, which Emmanuel glossed over, was to monopolise equity oil and production quotas to serve his business interests.
Another deliberate misinformation from the Dangote camp was the allegation that International Oil Companies (IOCs) and other industry players were trying to sabotage his interests. Apart from being an investor in the Dangote Refinery, the NNPC still supplies gas to various Dangote companies across Nigeria. How can anyone or any institution jeopardise their investment? What further proof of faith does Dangote and his minions need to know that the NNPC is their cheerleader, and is here to make operating in the industry seamless and a win-win for all?
Echoing Dangote’s baseless stance, Emmanuel also called for the sack of Mr. Farouk Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), regulators of Nigeria’s midstream and downstream value chain. By Emmanuel’s warped reckoning, Ahmed had no locus to speak against Dangote or his enterprise because the latter questioned the quality of the product from Dangote Refinery and other local refineries in comparison with imported ones. Of course, Emmanuel’s was a lone voice in the wilderness because those who understand the invaluable role that the NMDPRA plays in the industry did not as much as dignify his tirade with a glance.
In a robust response to Emmanuel’s groundswell of egregious lies, Ibrahim Y. Kabo, a petroleum engineer based in Abuja, described him as “Someone who has not seen the inside of a refinery before Dangote built one, let alone understood the mechanism of the energy industry, …(yet) assuming the role of an authority in oil and gas matters.”
He went further to lampoon Emmanuel for stating that only Dangote Refinery’s products meet specifications while others are all sub-standard. “The obvious question is: whose specifications? For a refinery that has barely made four of seven pre-inauguration certifications, it sounds somehow laughable to suddenly assume the role of regulator in an industry you’ve barely entered,” Kabo said.
In the article, entitled, “The Hand of Aliko, the Voice of Kelvin: Inside Dangote Refinery’s Media Stunt Lab”, Kabo declared that from all Emmanuel’s interviews and pretensions to be an industry expert, one thing is obvious: “He lacks an understanding of both the mandate and the reach of NNPC as a national oil company.”
Kabo adds that, “Downstream is the least of NNPC’s business interests. The mandate, as per PIA (Petroleum Industry Act), is to facilitate both the extraction and commercialization of Nigeria’s oil and gas resources. 20 billion dollars may be a lot, but NNPC and industry regulators routinely handle projects of that magnitude. At best, Dangote and (Emmanuel’s) ranting are an irritation. I believe that’s why NNPC openly declared it was not interested in being Dangote’s off-taker.”
Like the Yoruba saying goes, derision does not stop the sweetness of the honey. The meddlesome minions and messengers of misinformation can continue dancing naked in the marketplace, but what is most important is that the NNPCL has assured that it will not cease doing everything in its capacity “to harness the possibilities of oil and gas, address energy demand and drive the national economy, and become the number one oil producer and supplier in Africa.”

–Tayo Williams is a Lagos-based media executive