I don’t have problem accepting Ifeanyi Ubah, MD/CEO Capital Oil as a successful and very shrewd businessman even if of questionable and not so well defined business history. Ubah is a prominent member of the exclusive club of Oil and Gas magnets determining happenings in Nigeria’s “abracadabric” oil industry. With a personal net worth of N500bn, Ubah is no doubt a rich man by any standard or consideration.
Recently he was in the news after a long hibernation induced by his tasking and “patriotic national duty” of coupling, sponsoring and managing “TAN”, a now “disappeared into thin air” political (or was it monetary) pressure group that rolled out the loudest drums to support and generate support for the ousted regime of Goodluck Jonathan. This time, Ubah’s drums were rolled out to campaign for consultancy to resuscitate the ailing Naira and shame the bossy dollar all in a bid to “help” a TAN described “analogue” President Buhari while uploading a secondary responsibility of “national patriotism”. This, Ubah intend to achieve using a formula which workability was so “guaranteed” that he staked his N500bn fortune as a wager just in case Nigeria defies a “magical” economic theory he kept close to his chest waiting for the green light from Aso Rock villa to unleash on Nigeria and perhaps, the global economic community.
Most probably Ubah waited longer than he calculated was necessary and felt he should release the almighty Naira saving formula even if unpatented to save Nigeria from economic asphyxiation and sudden death hence, the release of the formula and the witnessed daily decline of the dollar which, according to Ubah will soon hit a more respectable 200/1 mark. He actually declared the Naira started crashing a day after his offer to President Buhari to “donate” his formula to save Nigeria. How timely! In the first phase of a heavy document he presented to the press, he said:
“Since my TV appearance and statement on Sunday night on Channels TV, the Dollar crashed from about N400/$1 to a year-low of N220/$1 before stabilizing at N290-N300/$1 currently. Is this not enough evidence that we can arrest this artificial freefall of the Naira with honesty and ingenuity?” Marvelous, if I may say. One begin to wonder why Ubah never proposed this formula as part of the goodies accruable to Nigerians among all the silly promises of TAN he spent a good time selling to them. However, it’s amazing that despite the tons of literature expended by Ubah to promote his formula, he remained short of explaining why or how the crashing of the dollar was directly (or even indirectly) related to his “Channels TV” N500bn wager just as he never tell Nigerians how President Buhari could enforce the terms of the wager if it fails. Such cunning ingenuity!
Completely unable to deal with Ifeanyi Ubah outside his “TAN” identity, I couldn’t bring myself to see anything in his “I’m the savior” kind of declaration than a mere “notice me” effort to enter the good books of President Buhari. Apparently used to the shallow mindedness of Goodluck Jonathan, perhaps this comedian is under the impression that foolishness is part of the job description of a Nigerian President. Of course, it shouldn’t be out of place for a man with a N500bn fortune made in Nigeria’s hazy and fraudulent Oil and Gas industry to aspire to enter the good books of President Buhari. It’s a serious situation of “you don’t want more, you don’t want to lose some” that Ubah’s declaration of “I’m just doing it for the nation” is as hollow as Dasuki’s claim of being victimized by President Buhari as if President Buhari was there when he did his thing. I doubt if a fortune as kingly as Ubah’s could pass any serious scrutiny – not in Nigeria’s fraudulent business atmosphere. For that I will ignore all the bragging and chest beating. We deal with that when we get there and, neither Ifeanyi Ubah nor any magician should assume we would not get there.
In the interim, let’s critique the formula and make sense or nonsense of it. Rather than waste time trying to argue the possibility of the impossibly impossible scenario of a swift solution that may revive the Naira, I will restrict my analysis to the little of the formula Ubah released to the public. In the document Ubah released to the public which was meant to be the first phase of his proposal but, which read more like his biography, the only paragraph that read anything close to the “over advertised” solution he promised Nigerians reads:
“media appearances (like his Channels TV appearance which made the dollar to start declining) constitute another component that will galvanize and mobilize Nigerians for proactive measures, which include shunning, ignoring and rejecting the Dollar until it crashes to N200! We are calling upon Nigerians to demystify our demand for this commodity – THE DOLLAR – and stop patronizing products that drain Nigerian forex reserves. You can now observe that this is not a POLITICAL STUNT, as some quarters would want well-meaning Nigerians to believe”.
If this doesn’t qualify for reverse exhibition of intelligence, I don’t know what would ever be. This guy must have worked his “Naira resuscitation theory” in a biological rather than economic laboratory and must have snipped something with reverse effect on his brain to be so deluded into believing Nigerians are intellectually running on “E” tanks to accept his hogwash as a product of a tasking mental exercise for which he should be celebrated and honored. Even to the dumbest, Ubah merely plagiarized the idea adopted by President Buhari to halt the dangerous decline of Nigeria’s economy. Right from day one President Buhari left no one in doubt about his intention to discourage over reliance on products that drains Nigeria’s foreign reserve and was daily promoting local alternatives to preserve the nation’s foreign exchange reserve. If this is not a shot at demystifying the dollar and Ubah’s theory in brief what else is?
Probably Ubah thought saving the Naira is all about wearing designer suit and paying fees to speak flowery English in TV studio else, he should have known that Nigerians have the needed sophistication to smell fraud in whatever garb. The fact that he could amass a N500bn fortune doesn’t make him more a genius than your average guy on the street who could do just as well given luck to break the exclusivity of Nigeria’s business atmosphere. A monkey could be a billionaire in Nigeria with the right attitude and arriving at the right venue at the right time. I’m challenging him to open up and tell the world the formula he used to acquire his N500bn fortune which he claimed was generated without wavers and other government patronage. He actually believe this could give credibility to his claim to ingenuity.
For those with the patience to read through the balderdash he presented to the end certainly, they would like to know why his theory of emancipation was largely an attempt to launder his image by writing more about his history, particularly his role in “TAN” and the management of its finances. If, as he claimed, his effort was aimed at substituting our negative narrative with a more positive narrative, shouldn’t Ubah explain to Nigerians when he developed a positive attitude towards Nigeria that he feel qualified to influence same on the 170m he attempted to sell a dummy in the candidacy of Jonathan using “TAN” as a tool? He could have done better telling Nigerians why he wept profusely during the presentation of election report to Jonathan soon after PDP/Jonathan lost elections. Was he worried about how to justify Jonathan’s 10m votes when all the while he (Jonathan) was made to believe TAN had 12m signatures of Nigerians willing to vote for him? That’s a subject for another day though.
Unless he truly believe Jonathan was, in his best opinion, the best option left to Nigeria even with all the credible alternatives of the time as “TAN” intimidatingly and militarily preached and marketed Jonathan/PDP, then I have to believe he’s about the only seemingly clear minded person to believe so because there was a global consensus on the glaring deficits of Jonathan as a leader. If he could neither see nor appreciate these deficits, certainly his ambitious dream of being a “super-hero economist” of the league he’s projecting would remain just dream it is. It’s our “luck” we have such false claimants and aspirants for fame by the tons. Only recently a more modest and less adventurous one claimed to have broken an ancient mathematical puzzle, a claim he failed to substantiate as was proven to be a hoax by the erudite columnist and American based professor, Farooq Kporegi. Nigeria seem to be a soft target for fraudsters.
Going through Ubah’s prescription, the most visible components were those where he labored to tell Nigerians how patriotic and good he is. In one, he was so neighborly that he built a whole street and provides 24hr free electricity to it as if that’s anything to a man who claim to be supplying 35% of Nigeria’s local fuel requirement. Others were those he tried to justify his founding of “TAN”, its finances and his relationship with Jonathan. The funniest part of the “theory” and perhaps, the motive behind it was a cleverly knitted component. It reads: “Probability of working with President Buhari” which, incidentally came after another component: “My relationship with Jonathan”. The two components read like the executive summary of the whole trash he wrote and were closely placed to say in few words the “AGIP” message hidden in the garbage. If you still don’t get the picture by now, may God help you!
It’s nauseating listening to this senior “TANtanite” praising President Buhari – the same “Buhari TAN spent time and money insulting in the most ridiculous manner imaginable among which was the claim that he don’t even have a school certificate. Today, “TAN” is out of business and Ubah is extending his business acumen to offer consultancy services to Nigeria to improve its IGR with a GUARANTEED 30% growth. I wonder why the IGR profile of Nigeria never meant much to him even when he could get the consultancy to implement his “30% growth” with just a flick of the finger. If that doesn’t sound like a mating call from Ubah to the new regime what could. I wonder how a smart “I’m worth N500bn” fellow could subject himself to this kind of ridicule. I’m sure there are things Ubah didn’t say in his proposal that could blow the picture bigger enough for average minds like me to understand. Thankfully, PMB is a genius when it comes to picking frauds. Very soon we will know what’s pursuing this guy that turned him into an emergency economist from a mere importer/exporter.
Leave a Reply