Celebrating Don Etiebet at 80

The Petroleum Club, Africa’s first-of-its-kind policy advocacy group in the hydrocarbon sector, will hold a lavish dinner in Lagos next week to celebrate one of its founding fathers, Atuekong Don Etiebet, on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

The club is made up of leaders in the Nigerian oil and gas industry and respected professionals associated with the industry. The dinner event holds at the Metropolitan Club, Victoria Island, the exclusive, members-only elite club. He has asked me to attend the dinner as his guest, noting, ‘’I am not inviting you as a journalist. I’m inviting you as a friend’’. Vintage Atuekong! Chief Etiebet is a pioneer in ICT, a towering figure in business and the petroleum industry. His landmark accomplishments are well documented. He was Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister from 1993 to 1995, during which the iconic NNPC Towers in Abuja were built and the construction of the NLNG was relaunched with considerable support from the government that eventually led to its completion after a 35-year stagnancy. He was also played important roles in the establishment of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), an interventionist agency, which was headed by former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general. The PTF is credited for massive infrastructural development, using funds saved from partial withdrawal of fuel subsidy which sent petrol price from N3/litre to N12/litre. As Minister, Etiebet also introduced many reforms in the oil industry, including strengthening the DPR an important regulatory agency.

As Petroleum Minister, Etiebet had the foresight and sound judgement about deep offshore oil production as the new frontier of oil and gas production in the country. he approved the first ever deep-water offshore oil and gas exploration and production program pioneered by Shell in 1994. Today, the Bonga oil fields on the Atlantic Ocean is the nation’s most resourceful offshore production platform. It is a wonder that despite his deep involvement in the industry as minister, Atuekong has no single oil field (either OPL, OML or marginal oil field) allocated to him. That is the nature of a typical Akwa Ibom man – honesty, integrity and transparency. In this country, his breed is rare. Many oil ministers that came after him are still engulfed in scandals. We are aware of girlfriends of top military leaders who were allocated oil blocs and today they’re very rich!

Atuekong is also a pioneer and colossus in business, especially the ICT and real estate. He is the Chairman of Obodex Group which comprises 12 businesses in the ICT, oil and gas and property development. In recognition of his contributions, President Jonathan decorated him with the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON). Professionally, he’s also been widely celebrated, a reflection of his broad footprints in the nation’s corporate terrain. He is Fellow of the Nigeria Computer Society (FNCS); Fellow of the Computer Registration Council of Nigeria (FCPNS); Fellow of the Nigerian Mining Geosciences Society (FNMGS); Member of Society of Petroleum Engineers (MSPE); Member of Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (MNAPE); Member of American Association of Petroleum Geologist (MAAPG), among other professional laurels. I do not know of any other Nigerian that is so well decorated and accomplished in the petroleum and ICT sectors as Atuekong Don Obot Etiebet. Yet, he is unassuming and self-effacing. He belongs to the old generations of Nigerians who made money and created wealth from hard work, industry and grit.

Etiebet is a household name in Nigeria and a proud Akwa Ibom leader. His elder brother, Donald, was a senator and later governor of Cross River State in the Second Republic when Shehu Shagari was President. He died at 81 in 2015. The name is also prominently emblazoned on a high rise building in Ikeja, near Sheraton Hotel in Lagos. Etiebet Place, built in 1992, stands as a towering testimony to the business sagacity of this newest octogenarian. After obtaining a Masters degree in Applied Geophysics from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and working in the oil industry in that country and in Shell Petroleum in Holland, young Don Etiebet (his full name is Donatus) returned to Nigeria in September 1971 to start building his businesses. The first was Earth Sciences Limited, established in 1972 as the first Nigerian-owned company in geophysical prospecting and computer data processing services.

The company grew rapidly and in 1979, Etiebet founded Data Sciences Nigeria Limited (DSNL) to take over the computer businesses of Earth Sciences. It was the exclusive distributor for the the US-based Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). DEC was the was the pioneer producer of interactive computers and largest manufacturers of mini computers in the world. Data Sciences provided computer hardware and software to the oil industry, and later in other areas like education, banking and in the utilities sectors. In 1980, he established another company, OBODEX Nigeria, which, in 1990, launched the first ever Nigerian brand name in personal computers, known as OBODEX PCs. OBODEX PCs introduced the first keyboard with the Naira sign. Hundreds of young Akwa Ibom persons, some of whom have become business leaders and political chieftains today, got their first jobs in the employ of Chief Etiebet. Many of them arrived Lagos from their villages and hamlets for the first time in the 1980s and ‘90s to pick up their first jobs at OBODEX Group. They owe the old man a lifetime of gratitude.

His company was the first to install computer-based communications systems linking oil platforms in Warri and Portharcourt and homes of the oil executives in the two locations. This was the forerunner of what we have now as e-mail and Internet connectivity; and for his pioneering roles, he has remained a trustee of the Nigeria Internet Group which he helped found. Atuekong Etiebet contributed immensely to the establishment of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) that is responsible for the formulation of government’s policies on ICT. His pioneering works also led to the establishment of Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), the regulatory agency for ICT, of which he was a pioneer director.

Chief Etiebet’s chieftaincy title, Atuekong, means the lead warrior. It is a fitting recognition for a man who has spent his resources fighting for the poor and underprivileged in the society and the development of his native Akwa Ibom State. He and his elder brother, Senator Etiebet, are some of those who fought for the creation of the state. Atuekong himself fought assiduously for the abrogation of the obnoxious onshore-offshore oil dichotomy that eventually led to the payment of huge oil revenues to Akwa Ibom State. In my book published in December, 2021, titled ‘’Inside Story of the Fight for the Abrogation of the Onshore-Offshore Oil Dichotomy’’, I identified and celebrated Atuekong, with 12 others, for his heroic contributions to that struggle. Since President Obasanjo signed the abrogation bill in 2004, Akwa Ibom has been receiving huge sums of money in derivation payments and FAAC allocations every month, and it’s the reason the state has grown quite rapidly in the last two decades. I urge the state government to celebrate Chief Etiebet and the other men and women, including Obong Victor Attah and Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, who played important roles in that fight.

Etiebet has also been a notable player in Nigerian politics. He was the founder and financier of a major political party, Nigeria Center Party (NCP), during the transition programme of General Sani Abacha. He ran for the presidency of the country under the party’s platform, gathering considerable national appeal and support. But unknown to him and many others, Abacha was deceitfully and cunningly planning to transmute from a military leader to a lifelong political Head of State. Abacha forced Etiebet and others to abandon their political ambitions in in 1997 in order to perpetuate himself in power, but fortunately, the brutal dictator died suddenly in 1998, paving the way for a more genuine transition program midwifed by Gen.

Abdulsalami Abubarkar. Etiebet then teamed up with other notable politicians to found the PDP, on which he also ran for president at the Jos convention in February 1999. He later joined the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and was elected its National Chairman in 2003, thus becoming the first, and so far, the only Akwa Ibom person to lead a national political platform. In 2014, he decamped to the APC in a massive rally in Uyo that was attended by Gen. Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. That’s when I got very close to him.

Atuekong turned 80 on Sunday, September 15; and he’s been receiving thousands of goodwill messages from far and wide, within and outside Nigeria. A few years ago, he suffered a serious health setback, but he recovered soon after. God in his infinite mercies showed him mercy because Atuekong is full of love and goodness. Happy birthday, dear Atuekong.