Spotlight on Umana Umana, MD of Oil & Gas Free Zone Authority

By Dan Etokidem

Obong Umana

Ages and epochs normally define people. But there are exceptional individuals who define their age, who steer the tumultuous and tempestuous course of history by stamping on it the badge of their powerful personality or powerful ideas. This is the story of Obong Umana Okon Umana, the APC leader of Akwa Ibom State, whom President Mahammadu Buhari has appointed as the Managing Director of Oil & Gas Free Zone Authority of Nigeria.

You may love or loathe him. You may adore or abjure him. You may vilify or venerate him. You may detest or deify. But what you surely cannot do is to ignore him. His rise to national prominence is nothing short of a phenomenon.

Sharp, smart, articulate, dependable, humble, versatile and multi- talented, the 2015 Akwa Ibom State All Progressives Congress (APC) Governorship candidate is indeed one of the most outstanding discovery of the fourth republic. His boyish looks belie a firmness of tempered steel. At 57, he could pass for 40. He wears his good looks on his shoulders like epaulettes, spiced with humility that only a patriotic leader possesses. Slowly and steadily, over the last two decades, he has witnessed a geometric rise in his professional and political career to the admiration of his friends and admirers and the utter consternation of his critics.

When the fourth republic came into existence, he was Finance Commissioner to the then Akwa Ibom State Governor, Arc. Obong Victor Attah and together they laid the foundation for a greater Akwa Ibom state. At the advent of Godswill Akpabio as Governor in 2007, the trajectory of fate offered him a bigger mandate and he was appointed Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and became to Akpabio what a shell is to a snail, an office he held with an administrative acumen that has come to become the benchmark for others to emulate. Even Akpabio will readily admit that Umana was the unseen force behind his success story as Governor of Akwa Ibom State.

In 2015 he offered himself selflessly to provide a catalyst for a progressive change to redeem the state by returning it to the path of greatness, positive growth and economic emancipation as envisaged by its founding fathers. He became the APC Governorship candidate for Akwa Ibom state by popular demand and the people lined behind him as their hope, redeemer and liberator. With his popularity and massive mobilization acumen, he led the APC in the state to become not just a progressive political party to reckon with but a mass movement that was unstoppable with a pace, tempo and dynamism that is unpararrel and unprecedented in the history of politics in the Akwa Ibom.

But the forces of darkness will not allow liberation to come easy. The polls were rigged beyond rationality and in a proportion that was unprecedented. Even the International Community were alarmed at the unimaginable degree of electoral fraud that took place on April 11, 2015 in Akwa Ibom. Un-cowed and in his characteristic nature as a man of courage who never succumbs to the forces of retrogression in any struggle he believes in, he took up his battle to reclaim his mandate, a political question was therefore taken to court for legal interpretation and Nigeria witnessed the most titanic Gubernatorial Election Petition in its history that will forever change the face of not just election litigation in the country but the debate over the image and independence of electoral umpire.

Many will readily admit that Umana never lost at the Supreme Court because the country became the worst victim but his judicial battle succeeded in providing a template for an election petition that must definitely be referenced as setting the polity for an inevitable electoral reform if Nigeria is to make any positive meaningful progress geared towards restoring electoral sanity in the country.

Today, you can see in him many Umana’s. You can see Umana the technocrat, the strategist, the administrator, the mobilizer, the organizer, the politician, the patriot, the renowned economist, the financial expert, the philanthropist and now Managing Director of Oil & Gas Free Zone Authority.

Born on August 20, 1959 in Calabar, old Cross River State, Umana left no one in doubt about a future that will be coloured by hard work and excellence. After the dislocation in his early life occasioned by the Civil war, he proceeded to Edgerly Memorial School in Calabar to round off his primary education in 1971 with Distinction in his first School Leaving Certificate. Those who did not take him seriously began to pay him deserved attention after he repeated the same feat at College. During his last year (1976) at St. Patrick’s College, Calabar, he not only scored Grade One in the West African School Certificate Examinations, he also claimed the School’s Best Graduating student award for that year.

No one was surprised when he won the University of Calabar Foundation Scholarship in 1980, graduating with a prestigious second Class Upper in B.SC Economics. As has become his wont in every area of his life, he also sought and achieved the icing on the cake from the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers state. Umana’s decision to have gone back to Rivers State for an MBA is instructive. It might have been a way of discharging a lifelong nostalgia.

He actually started but could not complete his primary education in Port Harcourt, no thanks to the war. Again, known for his knack for knowledge, he has attended various Special Training Courses, home and abroad. Only a few should suffice here: Senior Executive Programme at London Business School (Feb 2009); Columbia Senior Executive Programme at Columbia Business School, Columbia University Graduate School of Business, New York (May 2002); Modernising Government at RIPA International, London (Nov 2001) as well as Budgeting for Efficient Economic Management at the National Centre for Economic Management and Administration (June 1992). These educational and training opportunities have no doubt made Umana, the star performer he has been at the many positions of responsibility he has held.

Whether at the beginning of his work life, as an Industrial Attachés at Champion Breweries from July to October, 1978; or as Research Assistant at the University of Calabar in 1979 sponsored by the Munich-Germany based IFO Institute for Economic Research; or at Gajir City High School in Benue state where he did his NYSC as Instructor in Economics in 1980/81; through School of Basic Studies, Akamkpa in Cross River State where he joined as Lecturer 111 in August, 1981, rising quickly to Lecturer 1 in 1987; to Akwa Ibom State Civil Service which employed him as Principal Budget Officer in October, 1989, his bosses all saw in him someone qualified, capable, dependable, and meant for the top, which gives credence to why and how he clinched the Akwa Ibom State Public Service Award for Outstanding Performance in 1991; and why he was appointed into many Administrative Panels of Enquiry.

In all his assignment, Umana was in his element, most, during his civil service heyday. His meteoric rise to the position of State Director of Budget in just nine years, plus his appointment as Permanent Secretary in Charge of Budget Office in October, 2000, are unassailable proofs of a life of hard work, excellence and enterprise. He only retired from the Civil Service of his own volition three years later when a higher position beckoned.
This proud son of Ndiya in Nsit Ubium LGA of Akwa Ibom State whose hobbies include reading, chess, music and squash, is also a member of the Nigeria Economic Society as well as Fellow, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria. He is happily married to Pastor Mrs. Florence Umana and their union is blessed with four children: Edikan, Kapnie, Nsikak and Imitoro.

His appointment is indeed meritorious as the cap truly fits this austute technocrat.