Peter Mbah: Why good men are leaving politics

BY MALACHY EZEUGWU

A grisly, even if uncharitable drama is being played out in Enugu state, the erstwhile capital of the Eastern Region. It is such a lamentable soap opera in which all good men left in society, no matter how much evil has taken over the human firmament, should be bothered about and fight with the last pint of their blood to stave off. Yes, in this part of the world, the art of politics has assumed Mao Tse Sung’s war status and politics itself has been negatively defined as a vocation fit only for those in love with sewers. But, for how long must good men stand by and allow this mis-definition of the politics that define us as a people and the political, which we have left in the hands of the worst of us, to continue to do in and cause our underdevelopment as a people?

At a time when good men are leaving politics and the rogues, the corrupt, and the hooligans are taking over the space, one young man, who has dared to dare the orthodoxy of evil by attempting to join politics for the redefinition of his fatherland, is being smoothly decorated by the political axis of evil in Enugu state, in preparation for a barbecue of his name. All in the name of politics.

That young man is 50-year-old Peter Ndubuisi Mbah. The story of Mbah is the story of the conquest of good over evil and the ultimate manifestation of the man who dares to dare destiny. Born of a humble family in March 1972 to the family of Chief and Mrs Gilbert Ekete Mbah, in Owo, Nkanu East local government area of Enugu state, Peter rose to become an international maritime lawyer, entrepreneur, business magnate, public administrator, community leader and philanthropist. His challenging story is that of a young boy from a very humble background who pulled himself up by his bootstraps into becoming an octopus in the huge rivers of Nigeria’s petroleum industry. Peter’s parents and the Catholic Church pumped ounces of moral values into him which today shaped his moral universe.

“If you made one single mistake of telling even a lie and my parents got to know, you would be a subject of ridicule for a whole day in the house. Dad would wake everyone up by 4-5am and after washing up your face, would tell you the tale of your life. We grew up being fed with values of hard work and humility and were told that integrity meant everything,” he once said.

Peter Mbah is one of the most unassuming human beings I have seen, completely a gentleman and unfazed by the giant strides he has made in life. In sartorial outlook, his underscore of the other person and his simple approach to life, Mbah deconstructs wealth, power and life attainment in one single stroke when you come in contact with him. Embedded inside his small-sized frame is a monstrous passion for development and an illimitable desire to change a decadent status quo.

Growing up, Peter was an altar boy in the Catholic Church and at some point, lived with priests. He was also a mass servant in the church, during which period the values of the Catholic Church were inculcated in him. He became a member of several societies in church and lived a tripodal lifestyle of being either in church, home or school. While at home, rather than mix up with other children, Peter would help his parents and assist his petty-trading mother in selling foodstuffs. He was her accountant who kept all her petty trading proceeds, giving accounts daily at the close of the shop.

Today, that young man has become the founder and chief executive officer of Pinnacle Oil and Gas Ltd., an indigenous oil and gas company, which has disrupted the oil and gas status quo. Peter’s life journey and career span entrepreneurship, public service, academia and philanthropy.

For his schooling, Mbah was in the United Kingdom and applied to Louisianan College for his A Level. When he applied to the University of East London (UEL), he got an unconditional offer. After a written test, UEL admitted him to study Law and Peter proceeded to earn his LLB Honours from the university. Between 1998 and 1999, he was the president of the Students Law Society, which under his leadership won the Students’ Union prize and Certificate of Achievement for the ‘Most Productive Society of the Year’.

Back in Nigeria, Peter was later called to the Nigerian Bar and awarded the Barrister-at-Law (BL) at the Nigerian Law School. He did his Bar Part 1 in Lagos and Bar Finals at Agbani, Enugu State. Peter then proceeded to do his LLM in Maritime Law. For his youth service, he was in Lagos with the law firm of Udeh and Associates and was mentored by the inimitable Justice Nnaemeka Agu (JSC, rtd) of blessed memory.

In the past few years, Peter has demonstrated that the quest for knowledge is his life. Even as chief executive of an oil company, Mbah was always on phone attending online courses in Havard or any of those prestigious Ivy League universities from where he has acquired tomes of leadership degrees and certificates.

Peter’s Pinnacle Oil & Gas Ltd entered the Nigerian oil and gas industry in 2008 as a late entrant but has gained a preeminent position by revolutionising petroleum product handling by significantly reducing costs and turn-around time of operations. The company has since reached a peak in the Nigerian oil and gas downstream sector. This rise is probably best illustrated by the company’s successful launch of its ultra-modern Offshore Petroleum Products Intake and Off-take Facility in the Lekki Free Zone, Lagos, the first of its kind in West Africa. The facility, in the first of a planned three phases, currently boasts one off-shore mooring system and 300,000,000 litres of petroleum storage. President Muhammadu Buhari, last year, declared open this facility and heaped a huge confetti of encomiums on Mbah for helping him to define his administration’s thirst to encourage investors in Nigeria. The facility is worth more than a billion dollars.

When last year, Mbah expressed his desire to serve his people of Enugu state as governor under the Peoples Democratic Party, I was one of those who dissuaded him. Pardon the inelegance of language, I told him point blank that it was foolish to leave such a thriving oil company which has become the leading light in the downstream oil sector to go and join politicians in their sewage contest. How could you leave a multibillion-dollar enterprise to go and engage in barren discourse with political charlatans? I queried. His reply was that his people needed him and his desire was to change his state of birth the same way he revolutionised the downstream oil sector, using Pinnacle as a demonstrable model. I wasn’t satisfied.

I have witnessed the dirtiness of politics. It is even more negatively peculiar in Mbah’s eastern Nigeria where politics is a battle of life and death and political actors abandon all civility, humanity and decorum to fight a needless battle for survival. I was however happy that in a region where a widely known 419 kingpin rose to become a governor, his kind would revolutionise the art of politicking and show the whole world the decency of politics and that decent gentlemen can partake of it.

The Mbah who I know is an intellectual par excellence, a gentleman in every spectrum of it and a man who is a tireless disruptor of the status quo. Monitoring what looks like his highfalutin promises to his people, I have told people who cared to listen that that young man would not rest until he achieves every tissue of his promises. Gradually, the gospel of Peter began to penetrate the tissues and bones of the people of Enugu state. In him, Enugu sees a future and renewed hope. This infuriated the axis of evil who were becoming aware that, unless they changed and tar-brushed the narrative, Mbah would reverse the narrative of politics in Enugu state for good and they may never have any hold any longer.

Like the destructive roller coaster that they are, the axis of evil rolled in, with all their destructive machines of evil and the cancerous machinations of Mephistopheles. Their first campaign was to try and dissuade Buhari not to attend the launch, claiming that Pinnacle money was Enugu money. It failed woefully as, apparently, Buhari’s security report had shown him a man with a purity of purpose.

Mbah had earlier made significant impacts while serving in Enugu state as commissioner for finance and economic development under Governor Chimaroke Nnamani and as chief of staff to the governor in 2003. The second destructive attempt that these men of evil pedigree made at Mbah’s jugular was to tar-brush him with rebarbative lies and aimless concoctions. They claimed that he had engaged in a plea bargain under Nnamani and was thus unfit to run for the Enugu governorship. Bit by bit, coated with clearly unassailable documents, judicial pronouncements and facts, Mbah made the axis of evil look stupid.

Then, sure that the people, Enugu state inclusive, are fickle-minded and are swayed by whatever they see, no matter how stupid, they shot a video clip where they alleged that Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited’s money was Enugu state money, with the intention of causing mass disaffection against Mbah’s candidacy. Logical and cogent rationalisation by Mbah’s group that if you add all the money that Enugu state has received from 1999 till now, it is not up to a tenth of Pinnacle’s net worth has persuasively shown how stupid the drafters of the concoction had been.

The latest in the tale by the moonlight of these destructive elements was to claim that Mbah faked his NYSC certificate. Pronto, Mbah released pictures of himself at the NYSC camp in Lagos. Fazed, these elements have begun to release very lame narratives with the intention to cause the people to see him as a felon.

If these evil elements have any cogent but immoral claim against Mbah, this is fantastic and will mark a U-turn for politics, especially in the southeast and a major return from the equation in, for instance, Imo state. But good men all over the country should not allow these men with hearts as dark as a sewer tunnel to have an upper hand over this man. I have met Mbah, seen the aspirations that drive him and can confirm that he will redefine and redraw the map of governance in Enugu state and the southeast in general. I equally know that these evil elements are just baying for blood so as to ensure that this intending governance by the best of us in a society this challenged never comes up. It is time for men of goodwill to rise in defence of Peter Mbah!

Ezeugwu, an attorney at law, writes from Nsukka, Enugu state

Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of TheCable.