Diezani Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s first female minister of petroleum resources, voted second runner-up as Newswatch Man of the Year 2011

She was very much the woman in the news in the 2011. This is not because she deliberately sought publicity but because news hounds went after her like hunters in search of an elusive prey. She also intensified the news hounds appetite by being cagey with information about herself, creating the impression that she must have something to hide. The search for information on the controversial Diezani Alison-Madueke, resulted in the discovery of some good, ugly and unsavoury details about her and those after the first female petroleum resources minister in the country.

No doubt, her gender must have contributed to the controversy surrounding Alison-Madueke who was born December 6, 1960, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to the family of the late Frederick Abiye and Beatrice Agama from Yenaka, Yenagoa local government area of Bayelsa State. Again in her desire to stamp her authority in the oil and gas industry, she took decisive actions which touched on the toes of the untouchables in the industry.

Some of the actions were very necessary as they ensured that Nigeria was wet with fuel. Throughout 2011, there was no fuel crisis in the country unlike in the past. Those who were affected fought back like wounded lions spinning tales in the media of corruption and nepotism against her. There was the allegation that she weeded out of her ministry and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, key officials of Northern origin and replaced them with those from the South-South. There were tales of favouritism, victimisation and perjury against her. A case in point was the allegation that she did not take part in the mandatory National Youth Service Corps after she graduated.

Alison-Madueke put paid to the lies when she appeared at the Senate Committee meeting to be cleared as a ministerial nominee. She answered all questions posed to her brandishing statistics to prove there was no nepotism or undue favouritism in the appointments in her ministry and NNPC. But this did not abate the stringent criticisms of her policies and actions, prompting Lindsay Barret, a columnist, to ask in his article published June 30, 2011, is, “Diezani Alison-Madueke a Scapegoat or Martyr?.”  Barrett noted that one of the sources of the criticism might very well be the same self-serving multi-national company that had earlier seen it fit to elevate her to its board of directors. “In serving what she clearly sees as national interest, Alison-Madueke has repeatedly called the company to order as it set out to sell some of its holdings in the Nigerian oil domain under what she clearly felt were false pretences. She has articulated this issue without fear or favour and will not be expected to relent in her challenge to that particular giant if in her return to the cabinet she returns to the petroleum seat.”

While many of those who have mounted attacks against the former minister claim to be representing the interests of the Nigerian public, they have deliberately ignored the extraordinary expertise and strategic professional experience, which made her one of the most qualified persons to have ever held the post of minister of petroleum affairs in Nigeria, Barret wrote.

An amorphous group which claimed to be based in Imiiringi, in President Jonathan’s home area of Ogbia local government in Bayelsa State, raised a petition against her to the chairperson of the EFCC, and then distributed it to members of the Senate.  But this petition was based on imagined actions of Alison-Madueke at the ministry of transport over two years ago and had been investigated and disposed of by the Senate in 2009.

Amidst all the ricochets, Alison-Madueke refused to be deflated. She matched her detractors positively using aides to deflect the spin jabs at her reputation. Most importantly, she focused her energy in boosting the campaign efforts of President Goodluck Jonathan, her principal by projecting what her ministry was doing to sanitise, stablise and sustain the oil and gas sector.  Early in the year, she projected the work she was doing in her ministry as petroleum resources minister to stamp in the psyche of the electorate that Jonathan was the best thing that had happened to the country. Investors responded and some of them from Saudi Arabia and other countries signed a memorandum of understanding to set up businesses in Nigeria. She worked hard to ensure there was no fuel scarcity. Her efforts paid off. She was rewarded with her reappointment as minister of petroleum resources. 

Alison-Madueke, graduate of architecture from Howard University, Washington D. C., has also worked tiredlessly towards the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill. It was never achieved as the 6th National Assembly wound down.

Alison-Madueke is the chairperson of the technical committee which was set up to look into the UNDP report on the environment degradation of Ogoni land,  Nigerians are still expecting that she will live up to expectation by compelling Shell to remediate damaged Ogoni land.

Toward the end of 2011. Alison-Madueke became the first female to be honoured with an honorary doctorate degree in Management Sciences by the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna. The Federal High Court in Abuja, had also in the year dismissed a suit challenging her appointment as minister of petroleum over alleged fake National Youth Service Corps certificate. Justice Gabriel Kolawole in December dismissed the suit in its entirety and awarded N150,000 cost against the plaintiffs, Messrs Makelemi Erhuvwurotu and Afri Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, a non governmental organisation.

Alison Madueke was among those who dominated news reports in 2011 for all the good and ugly reasons that she was nominated the second runner up as Newswatch Man of the Year. She came third among the nominees, which included Professor Attahiru Jega, chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, who came first and Aliko Dangote, chairman, Dangote Group of companies, who came second.

Alison-Madueke had attended schools in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. She worked with Charles Szoradi Architects, moving on to American Interior Builders Inc. as Project Engineer, both in Washington D.C. in 1988. Later she joined Furman Construction Management Inc. Rockville, Maryland, as Design Coordinator, returning to Howard University as an in-house project manager and a member of the Planning and Development team responsible for the design and implementation of a comprehensive master building and renovation plan for the university. She joined Shell Petroleum Development Company in 1992 as head of the Project Unit of the Estate Development Division in Lagos, supervising the refurbishing and maintenance of the company’s real estate in Lagos, Abuja and Jos. She later headed the External Affairs Directorate.

In 2002, Alison-Madueke was awarded the prestigious British Foreign and Commonwealth Chevening Scholarship and proceeded on a sabbatical to the Cambridge Judge Business School (then called “Judge Institute of Management”), Cambridge University Hughes Hall, UK, where she obtained an MBA in 2003. On her return, she was appointed Shell Nigeria’s Senior JV Relations Adviser for Strategy and Planning and then Lead Ventures Relations Adviser, managing the company’s relations and reputation amongst its Joint Venture partners. 

She has held three significant federal cabinet positions in the government of the country since 2007 - first female minister of transportation in July 2007, charged with the responsibility of overseeing the maritime, aviation, railways, and road infrastructure.of the country; in December 2008, following a cabinet reshuffle, she was appointed minister of Mines and Steel Development in which she had the primary responsibility for directing the ministry’s mandate in the exploitation of the nation’s solid minerals and steel development.

In March 2010, she was appointed Nigeria’s first female minister for petroleum resources.

Alison-Madueke is married with children to Rear Admiral Alison-Madueke (rtd), a former governor of old Anambra and Imo States and a former Chief of Naval Staff.