21/08/2024
Ekperikpe Ekpo: The Burden Of Leadership In A Pioneering Role
By Nseabasi S. J. King
Whenever it is a new role, a lot is unknown, and there is always a lot to do. I think this is the job description for pioneers that best outlines the intricacies of a new role.
If it is a new face at the door, you are faced with a stranger whose identity and mission you are about to find out. And if it is a new baby in the cradle, then you have a stranger in your arms whose character traits and attributes you are yet to know.
There is always a lot to be done in any new role, as a new role might imply a new terrain, unfamiliar turf, and/or an uncharted territory with very little or nothing known.
A pioneer is often travelling on roads that have never been travelled before or routes not fully explored. With little or no old notes to guide him, interestingly, his ingenuity, creativity, and intuition become the reference point for others.
His novel works become the distinction between myths and verified facts, assumptions and scientific data, notions, and empirical analysis et al.
As civilisation continues to evolve, new challenges like Climate Change thrusts upon us new issues and responsibilities like food security alarms, global energy crisis, and public health scare.
Under public health, Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates had over the years taken upon himself the responsibility of warning humanity against the danger in the ever-increasing likelihood of a global pandemic in the near future.
This new role and advocacy were misunderstood by many. Subsequently, the tech giant’s approach alongside the World Health Organisation (WHO) in containing the COVID 19 pandemic outbreak met with some form of resistance in a lot of ways. Even our New Normal protocol was greatly queried.
This was partly so because new roles may require a new approach to how things are done, and in some instances, a new approach that may disrupt the status quo is what is required.
Today, there is a general consensus in the global energy sector that things need to be done differently, as gas flaring and greenhouse emissions have been identified as key contributors to global warming.
But old habits, like they say, die hard. Now, how does one get very powerful and recalcitrant International Oil Companies, IOCs, who are known to have employed the services of very influential lobby groups in the recent past to stop or delay action on gas flaring in parliaments around the world to comply?
According to Wikipedia, “Lobbies are active in most fossil fuel intensive economies such as Canada, Australia, the United States and Europe, and many parts of the world. And because of their wealth, these Lobbies have the capacity and money to attempt to have outsized influence on government policy. In particular, the lobbies have been known to obstruct policy related to environmental protection, environmental health, and climate action.”
Across Europe, for instance, lobbyists have been accused of interference in climate change and energy crisis debates. On October 24, 2023, the European Parliament was compelled to announce a public hearing on undue influence in energy crisis response, after about 100,000 people earlier signed a petition to protest politics and meddling in the fossil fuel industry.
Chloe Mikolajezak, the coordinator of Fossil Fuel Politics Coalition, thinks that what he describes as addiction to fossil fuels is responsible for the current energy crisis. And went on to say that the exploration companies who are most complicit are lobbying to claw on.
In a research report, Global Gas Flaring and Energy Justice: An Empirical Ethics Analysis of Stakeholders Perspectives, by G. Aigbe of the University of York, United Kingdom, the findings have it that, “The main issues that stood out are the environmental challenges faced by the local communities. For example, the Niger Delta region in Nigeria is experiencing significant environmental pollution, and the federal or state government is not doing enough to tackle the issues. In addition, the oil companies are not considering the impacts of their actions on people and the community.”
Almost every report suggests a lack of genuine commitment and a lackadaisical attitude by these powerful IOCs. Wikipedia goes on to list ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Chevron Corporation, and Conoco Phillips as among the largest corporations in this bracket.
And of interest, all except one are major players in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. And you begin to wonder how one would fare under this circumstance back home.
But surprisingly, the reading of the landscape in Nigeria looks quite different and comes off as the flipside of the known narrative.
Barely 179 days in the saddle as Nigeria’s pioneer Gas Czar, Rt. Hon. Ekperikpe Ekpo supervised the historic end of routine gas flaring on all TotalEnergies platforms in Nigeria on February 16, 2024.
It is worthy of mention here, that Nigeria’s attempt at ending the release of obnoxious gas into the atmosphere started as early as 1979, when the Associated Gas Re-injection Act was signed into law, with January 1, 1984 fixed as the official end gas flaring deadline.
It is also worthy of note that TotalEnergies' example of playing by the rules and its 100% compliance under Ekpo’s watch took 40 years to happen after several failed attempts by successive governments. Note that this is happening 6 years clear of the new 2030 Zero Routine Flare deadline. It is very likely that Ekpo must be approaching issues differently. And the word ingenuity easily comes to mind here.
The Zero Routine Flare (ZRF) initiative was launched by the World Bank in 2015 and it received the commitment of governments of many oil/gas nations and International Oil Companies to end routine flare not later than 2030.
But according to the World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Tracker Report 2023, rather than reducing, globally, gas flaring rose to its highest level since 2019, by nine billion cubic meters (9bcm) more.
Against this run of play, Ekpo is clearly defying the odds in setting a new precedence hitherto unknown in the Nigerian gas industry, as we achieve the TotalEnergies zero flare feat, while he continues to double down on the routine gas flare and CO2 emissions reduction before the 2030 ZRF deadline.
Ekpo is not only showing uncanny leadership in building or laying industry frameworks as the pioneer gas minister, but he is also effectively harnessing Nigeria’s largely untapped gas resources in this new role.
This much was acknowledged by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his national broadcast of Sunday, August 4, 2024, when he said, “...our gas assets are receiving the attention they deserve. Investors are coming back, and we have already seen two Foreign Direct Investments signed of over half a billion dollars since then.”
In other words, Ekpo is giving Nigeria’s gas resources the attention it needs. He has discharged the burden of leadership creditably well. With this appraisal coming directly from his boss and employer, Ekpo’s pioneering role can be said to be off to a good start. And by the President’s own admission, it is paying off.
