By Akintayo Abodunrin
On July 17, foremost entrepreneur and philanthropist, Dr Seinye O.B. Lulu-Briggs, will receive the Special African Business Leadership Commendation Award at the 14th African Business Leadership Awards (ABLA) at the House of Lords, London, United Kingdom.
ABLA is the African Leadership Magazine’s flagship annual recognition award, honouring exceptional corporate practices and outstanding achievers in Africa’s public and private business landscape. The African Leadership Organisation (UK) Limited publishes the magazine and organises the award.
On that day, Dr Lulu-Briggs will share the stage with the award’s joint winner, the Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines, Mesfin Tasew Bekele. Other business leaders that will be honoured at the awards ceremony include Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Yemi Cardoso, Executive Vice Chair, ENL Consortium Limited, Princess Victoria Haastrup, Group CEO, KCB Group PLC, Kenya, Paul Russo, Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Finance, Cape Verde, Olavo Correia, and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos among others.
It is an honour well deserved for Dr Seinye Lulu-Briggs, who has played a pivotal role in the growth of Moni Pulo’s fortunes since she was appointed Executive Vice Chairman in 2005 by High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs, her late beloved husband, the Company’s founder and renowned Nigerian statesman. Her unique leadership style combines strategic vision with a deep understanding of digital tools and data analytics, propelling the pioneering firm to meet its vision of serving as a reference for excellence in the oil and gas industry.
People who know the Company’s history will attest to its steady growth under her watch. During that time, its portfolio of oil and gas assets has increased. Since the High Chief’s passing, Dr Seinye Lulu-Biggs has overseen the drilling of three exploration wells in 2018 and two redevelopment wells in 2019 and 2020. The drilling projects on land, swamp and offshore terrains were all technically successful.
Moni Pulo’s integrated health and safety management approach to achieve its health, safety, security, and environmental objectives has seen the Company record over 10 million hours of no loss time and injury in its operations. Despite these intensive and massive exploration efforts, Moni Pulo operates from a debt-free position, a rarity in the industry.
Moni Pulo Limited’s commitment to corporate social responsibility, CSR, is truly commendable. The Company has remained steadfast in supporting the well-being of its host communities. Its CSR initiatives, including in health, economic empowerment, education, culture, the provision of ICT infrastructure and training for youth, have made a significant impact and have been appreciated by the communities as well as regulatory agencies and Akwa Ibom State officials.
The Company, which leverages data and cutting-edge technology in its operations, has significantly impacted the Niger Delta region. Its interventions, aimed at uplifting life and living conditions, are a testament to its dedication to the community. Such initiatives deserve appreciation and support, as they demonstrate the optimistic impact businesses can have on society.
“Moni Pulo Limited is a company owned by Niger Delta indigenes. We understand the dire living conditions in Niger Delta communities, despite the wealth drawn from our lands. As such, from inception, we were particularly thoughtful and intentional about how we would operate our corporate social responsibility.
“Through inclusive and consultative engagement with our communities’ leadership and all stakeholders, we have followed the communities’ lead in the kinds of social and economic investments we have made in infrastructure, economic empowerment, health, education, skills acquisition, social welfare and stakeholder support,” Dr Lulu-Briggs stated last year at the inauguration of the Abana Host Communities Development Trust.
The Trust will serve Moni Pulo’s Effiat and Mbo host communities in the Mbo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, with Moni Pulo contributing 3% of the direct operating cost of its Abana operations to fund its accounts. The Trust will take over the work previously done through Moni Pulo’s Corporate Social Responsibility.
Moni Pulo became the first operator in Akwa Ibom State to comply with the 2021 Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) when it inaugurated the Trust last year. The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Engineer Gbenga Komolafe, commended Moni Pulo Limited during the inauguration.
He said the NUPRC was “delighted to witness the implementation of several sections of Chapter Three of the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021 mandating the establishment of Host Community Development Trusts, HCDTs, to foster sustainable prosperity within host communities, provide direct social and economic benefits from petroleum operations, to enhance peaceful and harmonious co-existence between licensees and lessees and their host communities, as well as creating a framework to support the development of host communities.”
Moni Pulo’s emergence as a leading player in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector is not luck. It is living up to the founder’s vision of being a reference for excellence in the oil and gas industry and a beacon of hope to succeeding generations of indigenous industries through continuously creating value for its stakeholders. Expectedly, it has taken commendable efforts by the board, management, and staff to make it a model company, even though detractors have tried to take it down. Forces have raged against the Company, but God continues to see it through.
Dr Lulu-Briggs shared some of the Company’s trials during the 10th edition of Moni Pulo’s Annual Corporate Praise event, which took place on February 28, 2024, in Port Harcourt. She revealed how people who thought Moni Pulo was chasing a lost cause and would never strike oil in its fields were surprised when it did so in 1999. They then waged attritional battles against the Company’s late founder and herself. She narrated their devious plots and how God intervened in her moving and powerful testimony.
The Moni Pulo Chair disclosed how dedicating the Company 10 years earlier and marking the occasion with a diary featuring its logo on the cover became fortuitous years later.
In her words: “The Moni Pulo diary of that year had our official logo beautifully displayed on the cover page. I handed over two copies to a close friend who kept one for himself and gave the other to his acquaintance. This person made the diary his daily companion for its aesthetic appeal. This acquaintance later visited his childhood friend at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation headquarters. When he arrived and the NNPC staff he visited sighted the Moni Pulo branded diary in his possession, he hastily cleared his desk of all documents.
“The action puzzled the visitor, who asked his host why he had such a strange reaction. The NNPC staff said it was due to his guest’s association with Moni Pulo Limited, whose diary he had with him. The visitor then shared how the diary came into his possession. He explained that I gifted two copies to his friend, who gave him one. The narration astonished the NNPC staff, who then confided in his visitor.
“He and his team had been tasked by the then Minister of Petroleum Resources to find grounds to indict Moni Pulo Limited. The objective was to prevent the signing of our fully paid operational license due to allegations that we had reported the Minister to the then President. But we had not made any allegations against her to the President. My husband and I sought an audience with the President to make a case for issuing our fully paid license, oblivious to the cause of its delay.
“The President intervened by instructing the Minister to ensure the license was issued without further delay. However, instead of following the instructions, the Minister gathered her team with a different agenda. They wanted to find a pretext to incriminate Moni Pulo Limited, deny us our license, and revoke the one we had been operating on long before she became a minister. During these clandestine efforts, my friend visited the NNPC, and the diary’s presence halted their activities. The planned indictment ceased to advance from that point onwards.”
Apart from these evil plots, she mentioned how God’s grace has ensured that she has secured significant court victories in suits against her and the Company.
The crowd at Moni Pulo’s annual Corporate Praise event, which also features her other businesses, including the O.B. Lulu-Briggs Foundation, La Sien Bottling Company Limited and Soliyama Limited, all platforms through which she cares for humanity, happily joined her in thanking God.
So, as she prepares to receive her latest award on the 17th in the UK, there’s no gainsaying that Dr Mrs Seinye O.B. Lulu-Briggs has earned her stripes as a consummate manager. Her unique achievements and contributions to the African business landscape are a source of inspiration and pride. Moni Pulo, too, remains in ruddy fine health and will continue to grow with the continuous deployment of innovative management and data-backed decisions.
Abodunrin is a journalist and public relations professional.