Irene Chigbue, Amos Adamu: Where are they now?

After these former public servants left office, no one has heard their voices in the public domain again; thus fuelling the question of where they could be at the moment; IDACHABA SUNNY writes.

Irene Chigbue

Chief (Mrs.) Irene Chigbue was the director-general of Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) who succeeded Dr. Julius Bala in March 2005. Chigbue was first involved with the privatisation programme between 1989 and 1991, when she was engaged as a legal officer with the Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation (TCPC), as it was called then. After the transformation of TCPC into Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), she was appointed as the director (legal services) before becoming the director-in-charge of industry and manufacturing unit. She later served as the director, infrastructure and networks before she was appointed by Obasanjo as its director general.

This UNN-trained lawyer has had a robust working experience before then. For instance, she was with then Federal Ministry of External Affairs between 1977 and 1978, where she served in the Department of European Affairs and later the Department of International Economic Co-operation in the same ministry. This is aside her stint in private legal practices. It is on record that since her assumption of office in 2005 till she left, her tenure handled the highest number of transactions in terms of privatisations. 

For instance, under her, there were 46 transactions in 2005; 30 transactions in 2006 and 31 in 2007 bringing the total transactions to 107. The proceeds realised from all these are: 2005, N172.2billion; 2006, N150.3billion and 2007, N183.3 billion thus translating to N505.8 billion realised during her tenure as against the N81.1 billion realised from 1989-2004 during the tenure of her predecessors. Despite all these, she attracted a lot of detractions.

Reacting to one of such, a columnist, Hamisu Dangana, said, “Since her assumption of duties as the helms officer at the Bureau on March 7, 2005 and subsequent retirement, it has been a miss-mash of kudos by those who saw the good works she did during her tenure but not so for some online publications and their co-travellers.

“To be candid, not many gave her any chance of success when ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, in his wisdom, announced her name as the director-general of BPE to replace Dr. Bala. Those intent on making her path rough, including, the online publication, have stopped at nothing to ensure that her attention was diverted from the job at hand. When it is not rumour mongering, it is gossip peddling or even petition writing. But glory to God  she has, so far,  weathered  the storm, making her mark in a unique manner that has endeared her to right-thinking members of the public.”

 Since she left office, not much has however been heard of her again.

Amos Adamu

Dr. Amos Adamu was the director-general of the Nigeria Sports Commission (NSC). He was before then a director of sports in the ministry for 10 years. Adamu holds a doctorate degree in Physical and Health Education and was a university lecturer before joining the National Institute of Sports (NIS). In the course of his career as a sports administrator, he was appointed the sole administrator of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in 1992. Adamu was involved in the administration and organisation of the 1999 FIFA World Youth championship.

In December 2000, he was named president, organising committee for the 8th All Africa Games, otherwise known as COJA, in Abuja. In 2005, Adamu was again picked as a member of the organising committee for the first-ever World Cup finals in Africa to be hosted by South Africa. He later became an executive committee member of FIFA and CAF. On November 6, 2008, the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua removed him as the DG of NSC and although analysts believed that it might not be unconnected with a global football scandal.

Since he retired from service, information has it that this former football administrator has now taken solace in theological matters in the Baptist Church as well as farming. This is contained in an interview his son, Ezekiel, granted a major newspaper last year.

In that interview, Ezekiel was quoted as saying, “The passion my father had for sport is the same for farming. Even at his age, he manages his farm himself in Oyo. I am sure he still wants to do many things. He had told me he wanted to become a pastor once he left office and he is presently taking a course. He also said that once he retires, he would leave active service. He didn’t want to be a retired administrator that would still be interfering in affairs.”

One mystery about this former sports administrator is that he has also succeeded in keeping most Nigerians wondering whether he hails from Kebbi or Oyo. However, not much has been heard about him in recent times. 

Stella Omu

Mrs. Stella Omu, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) board of trustees, was a senator on the party’s platform between 1999 and 2003, where she represented Delta-south constituency. While in the upper chamber, she was appointed as chief whip and also as vice-chairman of the Senate Committees on National Planning, Women Affairs & Youth Development.

She was the lawmaker who first caused a stir in the red chamber in 2001 following a letter containing suspicious powdery substance with the logo of the Federal Ministry of Communications she allegedly received.

Around the same time, other National Assembly members were alleged to have received similar letters. This caused alarm as the lawmakers suspected the substance to be anthrax, an agent of biological weapon for terrorism. This stir was justifiable because letters tainted with anthrax had before then been reported in United States after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack. Senator Omu was also the lawmaker of the 4th Senate that moved for the amendment of the 1999 Constitution. This is because in June of that year after the Supreme Court ruled that the National Assembly did not have the power to make laws for the governance of the local governments in the country, she started the process of amending the relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution by sponsoring a bill to that effect; however, that move never saw the light of day before she left the chamber.

She was one of the senators said to be close to former President Olusegun Obasanjo for which her colleagues never liked. Because of this, she became a target of attack by some lawmakers around August 2002. This is also coupled with her statement that the one-day election clause in the Electoral Bill 2002 might be reversed. She later voluntarily resigned as Senate chief whip because of the frosty relationship she had with the leadership of the upper house then.

In June 2003, she called on the National Assembly to quickly pass the bill to establish an agency that would cater for citizens’ welfare. Analysts say this is probably because of her background as a former employee of the Nigeria Prison Service. In an interview she once granted sometimes in August 2003 in the wake of the Niger Delta crisis, she urged all the warring groups in Warri to lay down their arms, saying that Ijaws and Itsekiris are brothers and should not allow political differences or other socio-economic factors to separate them. Omu was, again, a PDP nominee for the same position in 2003, but lost to James Manager, a former commissioner for works in the cabinet of James Ibori.

 Long after this former lawmaker left the Senate, not much has been heard about her anymore