‘2023 Transition Will be Pivotal for a Better Nigeria’
Roland Ewubare is one Nigerian Lawyer who can be described as a Jack of all trades and a Master of all! He has traversed the global legal sphere as an academic, human rights practitioner, oil and gas expert, and innately, a philanthropist. In a down-to-earth chat, he shared his interesting journey with right through till his resignation as a Chief Operating Officer at NNPC in July 2020 for personal reasons which he explained. He answered several questions which have agitated the minds of Nigerians on gas flaring, the recently enacted Petroleum Industry Act, the impact that the Dangote Refinery will have on Nigeria and our oil industry, and what we can do to optimise our mineral resources
Let us begin by wishing you many happy and hearty returns on your 55th birthday and a warm welcome back to Lagos Thank you so very much for the opportunity to have this conversation with you. It’s always a delight to be back home. There’s something about the vibe and pulse of Nigeria, that you can never experience in diaspora.
Your career so far, has definitely been robust and varied, and you’ve held senior positions in fields that are not even related, ranging from law practice to private equity, to human rights, to oil and gas exploration. It’s like you are a Jack of all trades and a master of all! Has your legal training been helpful in your career pursuits?
It’s a hilarious way to start this interview; but, on a serious note you must agree that legal education provides the best platform to segue into almost any career. It sets you up for pretty much any and everything, because critical thinking and thoughtful analysis are what you master as you train to become a Lawyer. I am very proud of my legal credentials, and even when people address me as an engineer or whatever, I am very quick
Onikepo Braithwaite and Jude Igbanoi to correct them and remind them that I’m a Lawyer and very proudly so.
We know you have two Master of Laws degrees, one from Queen Mary College, University of London, and the other from Harvard Law School.You started off as an Academic, teaching at the Nigerian Law School; then you left for the United States where you worked in NewYork as a Corporate Associate in one of the largest law firms in the world; subsequently, you served in Schlumberger, a foremost oilfield services company as Corporate Counsel in New York and returned as an Executive Director of Schlumberger in Nigeria.You then left Schlumberger to return to the US to start a private equity firm with some partners, before taking a leave of absence to return to Nigeria to become the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission. With the benefit of hindsight, what would you say about the Commission; is it a toothless bulldog, or is it able to deliver on its mandate to Nigerians?
I’m glad you asked this question, because it’s a very important one given where we are today as a nation. You see the Commission we have today, is not the same Commission we had when I arrived to start my gig as Executive Secretary in 2009. At that time, the Commission was essentially a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Justice. We got our funding from the Ministry, and we were not truly independent. So, one of the most critical tasks I set for myself as Executive Secretary, was to unwind and alter the entire philosophical construct of the Commission. Working with civil society partners and the Attorneys-General I served under, namely, Mike Aondoakaa and Bello Adoke, we rewrote the enabling statute of the NHRC. The new enabling law, set the NHRC up to be totally independent and isolated from the influence of the executive branch of government. As you know, the draft law provided security of tenure for the Executive Secretary, with a stipulation that his or her removal could only be achieved upon a request by President supported by a resolution backed by twothirds of the Senate. The funding of the NHRC, was also made a first line charge to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation. We pushed the amended law hard and vigorously, and Attorney-General Adoke was its champion, till it was eventually passed by the National Assembly and assented to by President Jonathan. Passing that law was a massive personal achievement for me, and remains one of my proudest professional accomplishments. I had almost three years left on my tenure, but I resigned in 2011 to return return to the US for family reasons, and to resume making real money in the private equity boom that was then unfolding from the ashes of the financial crises that took out Lehman Brothers and almost crippled the global economy. So, today, the NHRC has the full authority and power to fulfil its mandate, and I believe they’ve done well. Of course, every human institution has room for improvement, but given the fiscal and financial constraints that all public entities in Nigeria currently feel, I’d say the NHRC had done well, all things considered.
Let’s talk about your career in oil and gas, including your time at the NNPC where you rose to become the Chief Operating Officer of the Upstream Directorate, and later Chief Operating Officer of the Ventures Directorate. How did you get your start in oil and gas?
Thank you for asking! My first introduction to big oil, was about a quarter of a century ago. In 1998 to be precise. At the time I was an Associate in Mergers & Acquisitions at Skadden Arps in New York, and the firm had just been retained by Mobil Corporation to advise it in its proposed merger with Exxon Corporation. I was staffed on the deal. When we announced the deal on December 1, 2008, it was the largest merger ever in history with deal value of $81 Billion, and it created the 3rd largest company in the world at that time. The deal closed in November of 2009, which means we were working on the nuts and bolts of the deal for almost a year. In that time, I got to learn the dynamics of oil and gas at a high level, and I found it so fascinating. As fortune would have it, some time in 2000 I got a random call from a headhunter asking me to come interview for an in-house position in an energy company. The caller didn’t disclose the name of the company. Anyway, I went for the interview, and it turned out to be Schlumberger the largest oilfield services company in the world.
“It sets you up for pretty much any and everything, because critical thinking and thoughtful analysis are what you master as you train to become a Lawyer”