By Fred Edoreh
Our paths crossed in sports and politics. Perhaps, following the successes being recorded in the revival of the Nigeria Professional Football League from about 2011 when Hon Nduka Irabor was Chairman of the League Management Company, Ifeanyi Ubah was inspired to establish Ifeanyi Ubah Football Club.
The club was significant for two reasons. While Rangers raged on after the separation of Enugu from Anambra State, the Anambra people had no prominent club in the top league for several years. Gabros FC which had bought over the slot of FC Iyayi of Benin had, along with Jasper FC, filled the space for some time but, somehow, they kept struggling in the lower divisions until they began to wane. In the bid to bring back big league football to Anambra axis, Ifeanyi Ubah bought over Gabros FC.
While there were suspicions that he renamed the club after himself to popularize his name towards his political pursuits which later unravelled, he however proved to be deeply interested not just in the business of club football but also in the development of the beautiful game, for which he later vied for the Chairmanship of Anambra FA and introduced the “Football Made In Anambra” programme for grassroots development.
Winning the 2014 Nigeria National League, Ifeanyi Ubah FC gained promotion to the top division in 2015 and, two years after, in 2016, it won the Nigeria Federation Cup.
As part of the process, he embarked on building a sprawling 18,000 capacity Ifeanyi Ubah International Stadium, as home ground for the club, and subsequently went into partnership with West Ham FC of England to elicit international technical support for the talent development of players and coaches in both the club and its subsidiary Ifeanyi Ubah Football Academy.
To further internationalise his club and create eyeballs for the Nigeria league overseas, he brought in several foreign coaches, including Rafael Lira Everton, a former Fluminense SC of Brazil player who started his coaching career as an intern at Sao Paulo FC; Kenichi Yatsuhashi, former Accra Heart of Oaks manager; and Mitko Dobrev from Bulgaria. He also signed on a pair of Brazilian players, one of whom was Alberico who played in the 2016 Nigeria Federation Cup final.
He also built an enthusiastic following for the club across the country and a colourful local fan base in Nnewi and across the major towns of Onitsha, Awka, Oba and other communities who thronged to the stadium on match days. The club elicited the invitation of quite a number of players, the likes of goalkeeper Ikechukwu Ezenwa, defender Sylvester Eze, Prince Aggreh and Olamilekan Adeleye, to the Super Eagles camp.
During this period, I was Chairman of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, Lagos Chapter, and was deeply involved in the NPFL revival project which saw the live broadcast of our top league on SuperSport, a committed media following and a huge return of fans to the stadiums.
By the LMC mandate, I undertook the inspection of the Ifeanyi Ubah International Stadium a number of times, as with other stadiums too, to ensure that it met stated standards to host league games before the opening of each season. I was also a regular Super Delegate, a sort of quasi-undercover journalist to discreetly assess and report on match proceedings, officiating, fans behaviour, stadium security, sponsorship and commercial activities, condition of stadium facilities and other concerns.
The demand of integrity in the fulfillment of these responsibilities dictated distancing one’s self from club owners and managers, and this created difficulties in freely fraternising with Ifeanyi Ubah each time I was in Nnewi.
While we interacted well at the stadium, he always expected that I would join others, many of whom he supported generously in their personal challenges, to share some good private time with him whenever we were in Nnewi to cover his club games, but on various occasions when he invited us for dinner after a match or breakfast the next morning, depending, I would have quickly and discreetly left Nnewi.
He understood my constraints (or restraint?) and I declare that, even as I avoided him while on duty, he still occasionally sent some hospitality package to me through my friends.
In his continued bid to build a cordial working relationship with the sports media, he supported the Lagos SWAN Cup a number of times, and even got close to investing to partner with us in the Lagos SWAN Estate project, situated off the Sagamu-Abeokuta Expressway, which I initiated as Chairman, but he had a reconsideration.
He later explained his difficulties about getting involved in the project to me, indicating that he was already experiencing some sort of ethnic resentment towards him and his businesses in that part of the country, and the location of the estate fell deep into his fears.
In politics, I formed the “Sports People For Jonathan” in 2010 with which, alongside a number of sports icons and grassroots coaches, we successfully mobilised the sports community across the country to back President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 election.
Towards the 2015 election, I returned with the programme. Even though I personally thought that Jonathan’s insistence to re-contest should not have been, minding the seeming national consensus on rotation between North and South, I considered that the flag bearer of the APC, by my rating that he lacked reasonable sense of economic management, was a no-no in the interest of the nation.
That campaign was particularly difficult, given the unrestrained propaganda and wildness of the opposition, especially in the Lagos area where I operated then. It was therefore a pleasure to see the emergence of Ifeanyi Ubah with his own campaign group, Transformation Agenda of Nigeria, and we did quite a few things together to promote Jonathan.
However, in the midst of losing that election, it appeared to me that Ifeanyi Ubah was also struggling with not just the survival of his investments and businesses, but also the integrity of his image.
There were reports of EFCC invitations, arrests and moves by AMCON to seize his assets. Matters came to a head when the CEO of Coscharis Group, Cosmas Maduka, took to town to allege various business infractions against him.
In the ordinary places, there were those who loved and revered Ifeanyi highly, but there were also those who tended to dismiss him as a bad guy. Some even suggested that he might be just a ritualist, 419 and all sorts, simply because he had plenty money which he spread around.
Some time in 2016, the national leadership of SWAN elected to make him a patron and invited some of us to Nnewi for the decoration. By the side of the event, he took us round some of his business and philanthropic investments at home, including the stadium, club house and the gigantic Cathedral he was building for the Catholic Diocese in Nnewi, the progress of which was also constrained by certain seemingly primitive factors.
We had a real good time with food, wine and takeaways but, as a journalist and being not in Nnewi for NPFL duties on that occasion, one thing was uppermost in my mind: to probe him about himself, his businesses and the allegations and perceptions about him.
He granted me the privilege of a very private, one-on-one no-holds-barred conversation. He suggested that I record him but I insisted that I was just on a personal fact finding mission to enable me properly background him.
I would say he told me everything, and honestly too. He adventured early as a young man to Ghana from where he started trading in motor spare parts, especially tyres. His business grew into the West Coast and to East and Central Africa. He especially had a great reception in DR Congo where he subsequently relocated and expanded his supplies to various European countries. He also became the President of the Nigeria Community in DRC.
He struck a great business relationship and friendship with DRC President Kabila and, when Kabila died, he decided to relocate to Nigeria.
Back home, the question was what to do, but he was not in a hurry. As he told me, after taking time to study the business environment, he concluded that Nigeria was a hugely import nation and 80% of the imports came through the sea, for which the shipments also needed to be transported upland. For this reason, he decided that his investments should be around maritime.
He also reasoned that our largest importation was petroleum products which also needed to be stored. He therefore went into haulage, raising his fleet from about five in the beginning to about 500 trucks afterwards. According to him, each weekly profit could provide him an additional tanker.
He also saw that while we imported petroleum products to serve the country, we did not have adequate landing and storage facilities. Indeed, we were holding vessels on demurrage at Atlas Cove before they can find space to berth at Wharf or Tin Can to discharge.
This led him into buying over various spaces around the port and building the largest private jetty in Nigeria, which could take the discharge of three vessels at once.
He also built a tank farm for the storage of petroleum products. It was larger than the combined storage capacity of the 27 major oil marketers, and it especially supported the then NNPC which imported about 60% of our petroleum products but did not have adequate storage facilities.
The deal meant giving him a little commission on every litre of product he stored, and he was making a haul of profit, almost N40m monthly, which the NNPC would remit him.
He said somehow, along the line, the remittances stopped coming as regularly even though they were still storing, selling and lifting from his facility. In the circumstance, according to him, he negotiated with the NNPC to lift products in lieu of debts owed him.
It is not clear whether the NNPC expressly agreed with him on that, or whether he might have over-lifted beyond his due, and there was an attempt to incriminate him as illegitimately lifting products under his care.
It is to be noted that he indeed secured loans from various banks to establish the jetty and the tank farm, and with the issues with the NNPC over remittances he began to have difficulties in meeting his credit obligations.
Consequently, the creditor banks began to come after him with particular threats to seize and take over his facilities. That essentially became the struggle of his life for several years.
It was at this point that he went to Cosmas Maduka, his kinsman, for help. His idea was to go beyond the jetty and tank farm into direct importation and sales of petroleum products but, being indebted to the banks, he needed support for credit facilities.
Maduka revealed that he used his influence in the banks to raise the needed Letters of Credit to fund Ubah’s new venture into importation and trading on petroleum products, the profit of which they shared at 60:40.
He also conceded that the profit which was estimated at about N150m for each transaction which took about a month to consummate was worthwhile.
The business went on smoothly for about six or seven transactions until the last one ran into a problem. It seemed that one of Ifeanyi Ubah’s international suppliers had held back to a part of the money paid for the product, apparently in view of an outstanding debt, given the blockages he had been having with his business, and therefore delivered only about half of the request. This became the cause of a rift, especially as Maduka needed also to close the deal on the Letter of Credit which built interest. He thus brought the matter to town with Ifeanyi Ubah being accused of fraud and all sorts.
To prove his honesty, Ubah surrendered quite a number of his personal assets, and kept assuring that he would clear up all the liabilities and obligations. This seemed unsatisfactory to Maduka.
Interestingly, several years later, seeing both of them at the burial ceremony of the mother of one of their mutual friends, journalists tried to ask Maduka about his earlier accusations and grievances against Ubah. He got visibly angry with them and berated them for mischief in trying to destroy the relationship between him and his young friend and brother, saying that it was a long foregone matter.
The indication was that, perhaps, all the obligations and the rift had been settled, and there probably would have been no need for the rift and altercations that occurred if there was a little more understanding and faith.
In my closing conversation with Ifeanyi Ubah, he explained that some persons actually felt uncomfortable with him daring to invest in amassing such a large portion of space and assets and establishing such a controlling business especially around the Lagos port.
In near tears, he said they did everything to destroy his business – colouring him bad, with virtually all the banks denying him credits even when they saw the viability of the businesses which many of them enjoyed profits from. Rather they chose to destroy his businesses and determinedly closed in to take over his assets.
He also expressed worries that the system tends to frustrate young persons with daring business visions, but he attributed his case to his incursion into politics and deeply regretted that Jonathan did not stand firm as he had thought he would.
“He did not stand strong. He let me down.” He quietly said to me.
As he went into the Senate, we lost regular communication and I really do not know what eventually became of his Capital Oil and Gas, his fleet of haulage trucks, his private jetty, his tank farm and other business assets, but with my interactions and things he told me at different times afterward, I was not too surprised to hear that he died of cardiac arrest.
“My brother”, that is how he always called me.
And now, I am saying, “My brother, goodbye. Rest now. I understood you and I know you tried. You were visionary, adventurous, bold, daring, brave, strong, exemplary and great.
“I watched your last video with your children in London in which you gave all glory to God. That was deeply spiritual and, indeed, your children and us your friends and brothers will always remember that there is no one like unto Him.
“However, please help us kindly remind God, even as He always sees and knows, that after your own travails, Nigeria is still now faced with the contradiction as to whether we can supply crude oil to the only operational and functioning domestic refinery in the country for the production of petroleum products at home, to help us out of our economic quagmire, or to keep importing petroleum products which deepens our economic woes. Help us tell God, dear brother.”
