Wale Tinubu, Oando and Flawed Narratives

By Louis Achi

Democracy would lose its defining character if it foreclosed the free expression of viewpoints by its adherents – including often flawed and completely hostile narratives by forces that seek to mislead and divide. Perhaps this scenario borrows from the common saying that “all’s fair in love and war” – and now in politics.

The notion implies that any type of behaviour is acceptable if one gets what he/she wants in matters of the heart, combat and politics. And it is in the eye of this contrived storm that Jubril Adewale Tinubu, lawyer group chief executive of Oando PLC, appears to have found himself in.

What’s the ‘core controversy’? Enlisting the thread-worn strategy of impugning unblemished history, some interests which under close examination suggest political horse-traders dressed up as patriots, have taken on Wale Tinubu, and are casting aspersions on his bold entrepreneurial trajectory and game-changing acquisitions in Africa’s strategic energy sector.

Wale Tinubu’s Oando PLC is Sub-Saharan Africa’s foremost indigenous energy group with a dual listing on the Nigerian Exchange Group and   on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Obviously to score what these politically motivated shadowy and not-so shadowy forces believe would be damaging points against the Oando Plc founding CEO, they resorted to attacking his familial relationship with the Nigerian President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is incidentally his uncle.

In these quirky attacks, they essentially push the flawed narratives that the Oando Plc CEO is being favoured in his business acquisitions by the government because the president is his uncle. President Tinubu has spent just 16 months in power while the Wale Tinubu energy sector foray is over thirty years old.

Various tropes have been enlisted to paint flawed narratives about the Wale Tinubu entrepreneurial story. His acquisition and later divestment from the downstream as well as his organisation’s buy-over of Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), have generated some contrived heat.

Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, went as far as asking the federal government to explain why Oando Plc got an accelerated approval to buy the onshore assets of AGIP and ENI while other transactions such as the Shell/Renaissance deal and the Mobil/Seplat continue to suffer delays. He even doubled down on his allegation that Oando was being given undue and preferential treatment in the oil and gas sector to the detriment of “more competent investors.”

But the NNPC Ltd. responded to Atiku’s allegations and clarified the core issues. In a recent statement, NNPCL stated: At the time NNPC Ltd. acquired OVH in 2022, Oando (in which Mr. Wale Tinubu has equity interest), had fully divested its equity in OVH to the other partners – Vitol and Helios. Oando actually began its divestment in 2016, with Vitol and Helios coming in as equity partners, leading to the change of name from Oando to OVH. In 2019, Oando fully divested its equity interest in OVH resulting in Vitol and Helios holding 50% equity interests, respectively.

“Upon acquisition of OVH by NNPC Ltd, both NNPC Retail Ltd. and OVH effectively became subsidiaries of NNPC Ltd. However, based on professional advice and sound commercial considerations, NNPC Ltd. opted to merge NNPC Retail Limited into OVH, and thereafter retain NNPC Retail Limited as the company name post-merger.

“The first step of merging NNPC Retail Ltd. into OVH has been completed and the post-merger renaming as NNPC Retail Ltd. is ongoing. “Contrary to the false alarm raised, neither Wale Tinubu nor the President has any interest in the OVH acquisition.”

In fact, at the time of putting this piece together, the post-merger renaming had been completed, meaning that OVH Energy Marketing Limited is now NNPC Retail Limited and this has been accepted by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

The renaming was done via a special resolution dated 11 June 2024, by the board of the company.

 Fogs, especially contrived ones, are easily cleared up with facts. The distortions targeted to undermine and mischaracterise Oando Plc and its founding CEO easily submit to this rule from the foregoing.

Wale Tinubu, Mofe Boyo and Jite Okoloko are three notable uncommon gladiators with sharp focus. When they founded Ocean and Oil, now Oando Oil Plc in 2001, the future looked bright. They were successful young men whose storied and sensational lives inspired their peers and made pioneer tycoons feel like they ventured into business at a very wrong time.

 Let me take you down memory lane. In 2000, Ocean and Oil Holdings acquired a 30% controlling interest in Unipetrol and later increased it to 42% in 2001. Following a further acquisition of a 60% stake in Agip Nigeria Plc in 2002, Unipetrol and Agip Nigeria were merged in 2003, resulting in the formation of Oando.

Later, Wale Tinubu led the largest-ever acquisition of a quoted Nigerian company, with Unipetrol PLC’s purchase of Agip Nig PLC, thereafter merging both. He rebranded the new group as Oando PLC, which continues to positively impact the lives of millions of Nigerians till this day.

Over the next decade, Oando subsequently built the largest indigenous integrated energy company in Sub-Saharan Africa comprising Oando Marketing Limited (“OML”), one of the largest downstream petroleum marketing companies in Nigeria with over 500 retail outlets across Nigeria, Ghana, and Togo.

 But of late, unquestionably out of political convenience or maybe outright malice, some political actors have been quick to accuse President Tinubu of favouring Oando which precursor entity had come into being far before Tinubu even became the governor of Lagos State.

Many can still recall the visionary Mofe Boyo alongside circumspect Jite Okoloko who helped Wale Tinubu birth what has today become the energy sector behemoth to beat. These three musketeers became the poster boys of the privatization programme then.

These were the three bold entrepreneurs that with Ocean and Oil acquired UniPetrol, a key downstream company in one of the first major privatization programmes.  Incidentally, then Vice President Abubakar Atiku was the chairman of the privatisation council as well as the head of the National Economic Council (NEC) then.

Along the line, the trio went further to invest significantly and grew Ocean and Oil, eventually merging Unipetrol and Agip.  naming  the resulting entity Oando. Their appetite for new investment is boundless. After some years, they acquired Conoco Phillips.

Tinubu was not the president when they were doing all these investments. He wasn’t president when, from Ocean and Oil, they acquired UniPetrol. He wasn’t president when they acquired Agip downstream. Tinubu wasn’t president when they acquired Conoco Phillips. 

Tinubu had not even become the president when they made a bid in an international transaction and acquired a major IOC. He wasn’t president when that deal and negotiations were consummated.

Today, fortunately or unfortunately, Tinubu, the uncle to Wale Tinubu became president. Now, all these entrepreneurial positives are being attributed to someone who became president just 16 months ago!

Their acquisition of Conoco Phillips almost brought them to their knees because of the long delays in getting approvals. They have been in this strategic sector for over three decades.

 These businessmen have a great track record of doing big ticket transactions. With their track record, they can only expand; continue to grow and grow.

The dirt being thrown at the company and Wale Tinubu is clearly politically motivated. Oando is actually the Nigerian equivalent of an IOC.

But there is a backstory to the GCEO of Oando, Wale Tinubu’s storied business trajectory.

He is an astute business leader, and a visionary with a track record of having raised over $4billion from international financiers for various growth, acquisitions, and development projects. He sits on the board of various companies. In 1993, he co-founded Ocean & Oil Group, leading its growth from an oil trading and shipping company to a fully diversified Oil & Gas Company.

In August 2024, 10 years after its purchase of ConocoPhillips Nigerian assets, under his leadership, Oando Energy Resources (OER finalized the acquisition of 100% of Eni’s shares in Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (NAOC Ltd) – the Company holding a 20% stake in the NEPL/ NAOC/ Oando Joint Venture (“the JV”), for $783 million.

This transaction increases Oando’s stake in the JV from the 20% secured post 2014’s acquisition of COP’s Nigerian businesses, to a 40% stake in addition to doubling its 2P reserves (from 503.3MMboe to 996.2MMboe based on 2021 reserve estimates).

Furthermore, it expands Oando’s exploratory asset portfolio through the acquisition of a 90% interest in OPL 282 and 48% interest in OPL 135, increases the company’s ownership stake across the JV’s infrastructure, and grants the company operatorship of the JV.

Tracking back, Oando’s roots date back to 1956’s Esso West Africa, an entity the federal government acquired, but under the privatization programme yielded its acquisition to Oando. But looking at the big picture, under Oando’s current leadership, the journey has been over a 30-year period, originating from the incorporation of Ocean and Oil Holdings in 1994.

Furthermore, the Company’s Upstream Operations date back to 20 years when it secured its first asset, a 42.75% interest in the marginal field, OML 56. In addition, the Company first foray into the NAOC JV was in 2014, when it acquired ConocoPhillips 20% stake in the NAOC JV and subsequently, exactly 10 years after, it has secured operatorship of the JV through the acquisition of 100% of ENI’s interest in the JV. It is noteworthy that Oando’s ConocoPhillips acquisition in 2014 was approved by the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan when current president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was still in the opposition.

 So it’s about time they stopped recycling these tired, flawed and vicious narratives.