Partnering Mr Biggs , We blazed the trail in down stream Sector ….Oyebanji, Ex – CEO, Double 1 Plc
Adetunji Oyebanji is erstwhile Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer at Double 1 Nigeria Plc successor company to Exxon Mobil Oil firm . After fourty five years long meritorious service, steering the ship of the organization, Oyebanji lately threw in the towel , stepped in gallantly into retirement at a golden rope age.
Oyebanji takes retrospective view of his long years stewardship , sojourning through Nigeria’s down stream Oil sector. For him , leading the firm to partner with Mr Biggs was not just a pioneering fit, but rather, trail blazing achievemen across the industry..…News-Mart ‘s Editor, Clifford Amuzuo captured views of this oil industry veteran during a recent interactive media chat. …Excerpts :
Fourty Five years of a remarkable journey, this is retirement. What emotions define the moments for you.
Thank you very much and again it’s a pleasure for me to be on the picture this morning. Your question is quite interesting. And What I will say is that after 45 years, definitely it will come with a lot of mixed feelings. But at the same time people always say that Christmas never catches anybody unawares, you know that its always in December that it comes and so you know that even if its 50 years, 100 years, a day will come when you have to retire. But I think the key thing here is to get yourself mentally ready and prepare for it so that when it comes you will be able to flow with it naturally, I think for me that is what I will say my case has been.
When you started in 1980 as a Marketing Representative in training, did you ever think of it that you will become a Managing Director some day.
Again a very interesting question, I recall that at the time I was been interviewed, one of the questions , and I think its the last question they asked me during the interview, they said, ok you want to join our company, how far do you think you can go in the company., and my response to them was that, ok, how far do you think that a Nigerian can go in the company as it is, as at that time the highest ranking officer in Nigeria was the Marketing Director, so when they told me that that was the highest position, I told them that is where I want to reach. I think the other thing that was interesting in my career was that when you hear 45 years you might assume I never tried to leave the company, but that isn’t the case, I did wanted to leave on several occasions. On one occasion, I was to go and join a colleague of mine who wanted to set up a business, so we had talked about it and we were both part of the planning process, and the idea was that both of us will leave and go and set up a company, interestingly enough, towards the end he said to me, you know what, and this I must say, must have been about 30 years ago, he said you are going to become the MD of this company, I don’t think you should leave to come and join me, at that time that led to a little bit of rancor between us both because that was not the plan hitherto, but I abided by it because he said that is what he believes, but interestingly enough. Five years later, another entirety different colleague who was working and who had decided to leave also said he believed I was going to become the MD of the company, again this was about 25 years before the event that actually happened, and then there was also another time when I had actually gotten another job, I was about to resign and had tendered my letter to leave, and the day I was to tendered that letter I was called by the HR Manager, and I was told that I was been posted to United States for an assignment that would last for 3 years, so at that point I just concluded that, wait a minute, may be this is where God wants me to be, all these my attempts to try and leave, somehow, one thing or the other is happening and so I decided to stay and that’s really happened.
Throughout your career, you witnessed multiple economic shifts, Policy cycles, industry disruptions which one tested your leadership the most.
I will say they are several, but if I should try and recall and remember I will say the transition from what was then Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc to Double 1 Plc. Essentially , what happened was that Exxon Mobil that owned 60 percent of Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc sold its interest, that 60 percent of the company to another company called Nico Investments and there was a whole big transition and you know what, new owners taking over the business and I find myself in a situation where instead of becoming Chairman and Managing Director of the company, now we have a new owner, new ownership, so it added new different facets to it, we are dealing with a new stakeholder, a new principal and getting used to the new person and how the new business will run, but most importantly was the staff, there was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of staff were not sure about the future of the company, so at that time about 20 of our senior Managers decided to leave over night, they all put in their letters and decided to leave the company, so it was very challenging and one had to earn the trust of not only the new owner but of the staff because I can recall the day the transition was announced, one of the staff had asked me, what about you, are you going to be here with us when all these things are happening, because you all have said the new owners are good people.
I think he was worried may be I myself will just pack up my baggage and also leave at that time and disappear, so that I will say actually tested me. Another area that I can recall was a similar incident but this time, Mobil Oil Cameroon, Mobil Oil Cameroon, Exxon Mobil also sold its interest in the company to another player entirely, and I was sent there to help manage the transition, this was happening much earlier before the one involving Mobil Oil Nigeria, and in Cameroon there was a great deal of strong g unionism, there was a lot of pressures from the unions because, infect when Shell did a similar exercise when they sold their interest to a new party and new owners took over, the people who came to announce the transition were actually kidnapped by the staff in that country, so it was a very big deal and I strolled into the middle of this, I was now the person who was in between Exxon Mobil and the staff and don’t forget in Cameroon they speak a lot of French language compared to us, so here I was, I stranger having to negotiate and take people through, keep my people in Exxon Mobil Happy in the process, but at the end of the day, we were to succeed, we were able to carry out the exercise. I think the other two things I might say was during the Covid period when we had to manage this, you know ours is an operational company, without Petrol people can not move, so we still had to , while Covid was going on, get people to know how to load products, how to keep people safe in doing that because of the health challenges and all that, the interface with the law enforcement agencies because nobody was supposed to move, everybody had to be at home, so we were able to manage that, and one more, let me just add that one, during the old issue of subsidy, when subsidy regime was in place, the first challenge we had was that my own company, my principal said, well, if you are going to buy petrol from us, and government could not pay you for the subsidy for one month, two months, three months, infarct at some time they were owing people 7 months 8 months before they reimburse the subsidy because what happened was that you have to order the Petro maybe for N500 but the government said you must sell it at N400, so the idea was that government reimburses you the N100 at the end of the day, that was what the whole issue of subsidy was all about, many people think we used to pocket the subsidy money, it wasn’t it but rather it was on the basis of reimbursement, so , but my own principal, my company said no we can not support you in that, so we were faced with a big dilemma, almost that we would have to shut down because we can’t get Petrol, my people said no, so I devised a means whereby I got a third party who will supply us on the basis that we only pay him the balance when government reimburses us, whether its 6 months, so they agreed, the suppliers agreed and that was how we survived that period, so there were many other instances, I will throw in one more extra for you and that was when I was in charge of the northern operations and their was a very big riot in Kano. I was based in Kano and where our office was located was a very volatile and dangerous areas, so all of sudden I had to take a decision, about our 100 staff that work there, how I could accommodate them, put them in hotels in safe parts of the town and whatever and because of the short time and whatever, I had to take those decisions without getting the head office approval, so there were lots of instances where I had challenges but we thank God, we were able to summon t all of them.
During your tenure what achievements were you so proud of, not just as a Chief Executive Officer but as a custodian of an institution with a rich legacy.
I think that transition is the major one, and when I say transition I mean the tradition from Mobil Oil to Double 1 Plc.
As I explained earlier, a lot of things went into it but I think most importantly is the importance of gaining the trust of your colleagues and staff and also the trust of the new investors , that is one thing that am proud of. I am also proud of being in Cameroon and I think I have explained that to some details. I think also there were instances when we had to set up relationships with Mr Biggs , that was the first of it’s kind as at then, we rented out a space to Mr Biggs, , UAC Foods at the time, today when you go to Petrol Stations you see many people have eateries attached to the station. What we did with Mr Biggs was the first of its kind in the industry, its something we looked back at with a great deal of pride.
