“Every single person in oil was cast as a criminal” – Y! speaks to Sahara Energy boss, Tonye Cole

by Adebola Williams

Tonye Cole

In this Y! magazine interview, oil mogul and former ministerial nominee, Tonye Cole – of Sahara Group – speaks about the industry, his beginnings, NIgeria, and more…

What is your reaction to the fuel subsidy probe that was carried out last year?

I don’t know. Hmm, first of all, do I have anything against a probe? Absolutely not. I think in every country, there is a need to review and check on things because abuse is normal. What I took an exception to was the fact that every single person was cast first of all as a criminal. The Nigerian public was given the impression that you had this pot of money and all you had to have was oil and gas funding and you’ll go in, keep your finger in and you’d take money. And I think it did not reflect well on the image of the country and the industry.

Do you think that the whole subsidy process was properly managed because even today, it seems that there are certain people who successfully spearheaded or who successfully let these things pass through

Again, that’s very unfair. While it’s out of the public eye today, people are still being investigated in every single level. So a lot is still going on. People are still going to court, people still have cases and all of that. So, it’s an ongoing process. It hasn’t ended at all and it’s far from over. However, has the process, in the way it’s been done, has it changed? Has it improved? Are there tighter restrictions as to how it’s being done? You now find that the process of doing oil and gas in Nigeria is probably one of the most tedious in the world because of the many checks and balances. So when you come and now put a process that every single person has to do a check, in every level, that’s what happens. So when you say is it better managed now? I’ll say no. The process and the levels of checks, is it better? Is that the way it ought to be now? Well, yes.

Would you say Amen to that prayer that says that Nigerian oil should dry up?

Ah, for what? It shouldn’t dry up. First of all, these are issues of resources. How you manage your resources is very important. Let’s take two examples of countries that have resource – oil, and how they manage it. I’ll give you three examples. One, you have Nigeria. We have resource, we have the oil. How about we manage the oil? Everybody agrees. We have the U.S, they have oil. They decided that “ok, our own oil in the ground, we are not going to touch it. We will refine, we will explore in some areas but the major resource that we need to run our economy and all of that, we will import it, even though we have it”. So they manage their resources understanding where they refrain. Let everybody else that wants to develop their own and sell it, let them go ahead and sell it. As long as we can afford to buy it, we will hold our own ’til the time when we need it. So, they have a strategy as to how they want to manage their resource. And then you have Norway, again, they have oil, they have the resource. But they look it and say, “let us assume that is a finite resource. We will develop it but rather than just spend the money anyhow, this is how we want to develop it. So we take it, we build fund around it to cover population and God knows what”. So, everybody has to have a strategy as to what they want to use their oil for. Dubai wakes up one day. Same thing. “Our resource is going, let’s do this” and then they look for alternative plans. I think it’s not a matter of ”the oil should dry up”, it should be more, “this is what we have. What do we want to do with it? Where are the steps? How do we want to go forward? Do we want to refine it?”

Some recent research states that there won’t be oil in Nigeria in 37 years?

I don’t think so. I haven’t done the research, right, but I don’t think so. The one thing that I know is that we have not done very effectively over the last ten years is explore new reserves in Nigeria. I know that there’s still a lot more that we can do so 37 years may be what has been seen or what is being produced currently but new exploration is still not done yet. So if we go into new exploration and create an environment where exploration becomes a priority and you can be certain that you’ll find more. However I think that our greatest problem is still on that focus on oil and everybody comes back and focuses on oil which we need to move away from. Yes I’m in that industry, but I’ll be the first to tell you that let us look elsewhere and go into other resources because Nigeria has potential.

Ok, let’s go personal. How did you build the business? Did you have to sell yams in Ojuelegba? What is your story?

No, I didn’t sell yams at Ojuelegba. I wish I had but no. So, I used to work for a company here in Nigeria until June 12 happened and the company left. It just packed up. Prior to that, one of my partners, Tope had seen an opportunity. Well, he had tried to work for a trading company and he was refused. They rejected him and that rejection became a blessing in disguise because he then decided that he had seized that opportunity and wanted to work with this company that was doing business in Nigeria, a company that was exporting petroleum products, and him studying that particular business, the response was always, “This business is a loss-maker…makes losses never makes money. Yes, it’s the best company, has been in Nigeria for about 15 years prior doing this same business that was always losing money”. I remember he used to come to my office and say, “I believe that there is something here,” and all of that. I said, “Okay, you know what? I’ve done enough working for anybody.” And so, I carried my bag and then we set up shop. So, we found a commodity which at the time was allocations so you get an allocation and that allocation is what people want to buy. Now the trick was, if they give out a 100 allocations, of the hundred allocations that they would give, one of these allocations would be the key one, would be the right one that people would be willing to buy.

So how do you find that allocation? How do you find the one in the hundred that makes sense? That’s where you have to become a genius; that’s where you have to have a process of finding that one. And how do you do that? That’s where relationships now come in. We had to build that relationship because there’s always somebody inside an organisation that will know which one makes sense. Who’s who?

What are the challenges?

17 of doing business in Nigeria is equivalent to about 40 years or thereabout. I read something this morning a friend of mine sent which says, sacrifice that is painful is not sacrifice, that sacrifice brings confusion, pain, troubles you and all of that, is punishment. But if it is sacrifice that is genuine, it enlightens your spirit, it gives you light and even though you’re sacrificing, you’re enlightened, your spirit is light because of it. I think that describes this journey for me. It has been a blessed journey. No regrets.

Why did you start The Unite Project?

As you get older, I think the question becomes ‘what can you give back?’ or what can you do to make a difference? The first few years, you’re more focused on just building your brand, then after a while you start thinking ‘what’s next? What’s the next step and where do you go next?’ I think I kept running into a lot of people that, especially the young generation, it all started with a lot of arguments and complaints. They’d be complaining about everything but no one wants to do anything. So it became a desire to let people know that more than complaining is doing something about it.

Do you think this generation is ready for any form of leadership in this country?

Yes, they are. I think they are. There’s a hunger to be properly led. A lot of times, they have given their trust and their hopes to people that just totally disappointed them and there is a lot of hope in the voices of the young. The younger they are, the more hope they have. As they start getting older, you start seeing the fire of that hope diminishing. Which means the sooner we can get the leadership at hand, pointing in the right direction, the better. The information is a lot more available among the youths of today.

How can you hold your integrity intact as a role model for the youths?

When I was in London, I had a business lunch with one of the ex-politicians in the country and we were just talking about perception of a person as a Nigerian business man going forward and trying to do business internationally. I’ve been doing business internationally for the last 15 years. The first thing that is put in your face is corruption. Now I don’t think we are doing ourselves any justice because what we have done is basically the more we talk about it, the more we push it, the more we describe it, the more we inject it. We are not doing anything to change that perception. As much as possible, one of the things I would like to do in my generation is push forward a different kind of stereotype.

What is your state of mind about Nigeria at this moment?

I think that we are at a critical point where we are at a crossroad. I think that the young people have a much stronger voice and a part to play in determining the way we move forward than they realise. So I think it is very pivotal and so Nigerians now have a strong voice at to what to do. There is a lot of awareness coming up among young people as to how important Nigeria is to them.  I think there is a lot more that can be done which isn’t currently being done. One of the things that comes to my head is that how do we begin to define what we really want from leadership at different levels. So if we are to have a President, what kind of President do we want? If somebody is going to come out for leadership what are the criteria we want them to have. It is time for us to collectively say this is what we want from a President. If we have the criteria in mind as to what type of leader we want, then we should benefit from getting what we want.

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