MRS. DIEZANI ALISON-MADUEKE was born in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to the family of His Royal Majesty, Frederick Abiye and Chief Beatrice Agama from Bayelsa State Nigeria. 

  She studied in Nigeria and the United Kingdom and the United States.  She began her working career  as  an architect at Charles Szoradi Architects, moving through jobs in construction and facilities management.

  In 1992, Alison-Madueke joined Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) as the Head of the Project Unit of the Estate Development Division in Lagos, moving to the External Affairs Directorate as Head of the newly instituted Corporate Issues Identification and Management Department.

  In 2002, she was awarded the prestigious British Foreign and Commonwealth Chevening Scholarship and proceeded  to the Judge Business Institute, Cambridge University UK, where she obtained an MBA in 2003.

  In 2006, in recognition of her record of excellence,  Alison-Madueke was appointed the first female director to the board of Shell, as External Affairs Director, making her the first female to be so appointed in 70 years of the company’s business practice in Nigeria.

   She has held three significant federal cabinet positions since 2007. These are Minister of Transportation from  2007 to 2008;  and Minister of Mines and Steel Development  from 2008 to  2010.   She has been  Nigeria’s first female Minister of Petroleum Resources from 2010 till date.  

  She   is the first and only woman to lead a country’s delegation to OPEC conference in Vienna, Austria. She was also the first woman to be awarded an honourary doctorate in management sciences by the nation’s premier defence college, the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna, on September 17, 2011.

  Alison-Madueke is  married  to  Rear Admiral Alison Madueke (rtd). They have children and grandchildren.

Her milestones as petroleum minister

SOME of the major achievements of the Petroleum Ministry under her watch include rehabilitating  previous non-functioning petroleum product deports and pipelines including the  Warri- Benin pipeline; and  the Benin , Enugu, Gombe and Port Harcourt deports. She   restored product supply to facilities  and  totally  rebuilt  the burnt down Okirika product loading jetty.

  She engineered the comprehensive re-draft of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) that is currently undergoing legislative process in the National Assembly and when passed into law shall be the first of its kind in terms of coverage and sweeping reforms.

  She completed over 307KM of critical backbone pipeline infrastructure which includes Itoki-Olorunshogo, Escravos-Warri-Oben, Imo River-Alaoji and Oben-Geregegu.

  The minister kicked off 1,860KM of ongoing gas pipeline infrastructure comprising: Oben-Lagos, Obiafo-Obrikom-Oben (0B3) and Calabar-Ajaokuta-Kano.

  She also commenced Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) of the 850MCF/D gas processing facility to support domestic supply of gas to power the Ogidigben Industrial park.

  Alison-Madueke initiated a critical gas flare-down campaign which in 12 years has seen gas flaring reduced by 20 per cent to an approximate 16.7%of produced gas.

  She maximized local value addition by encouraging the manufacturing of equipment component and parts in the country in furtherance of the Nigeria Content Act 2010.

  She successfully introduced compressed Natural Gas (CNG) to Nigeria with over 2500 taxi cabs now running in Benin City and many more being converted daily and celebrated NLG’s export of its 3000th Cargo.

Numerous travails 

From the outset of her appointment as a minister in 2007, she faced  a series of summonses from the National Assembly over one problem or another, all of which she was able to overcome. 

  Not long ago, the House of Representatives summoned Alison-Madueke, should the NNPC fail to tender documents relating to her N10 billion private jet expenses.

 Alison-Madueke was allegedly accused of spending billions of naira on private jets. 

  There was also an allegation of missing $20 billion oil funds of which she was later cleared .

 The Senate Committee on Finance later revealed that no money was missing, contrary to the claim of former Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi . 

   By the time a Senate committee commenced an investigation into the matter, Sanusi made a u-turn on the said amount when he dramatically claimed that it was $10 billion and not $49.8b that was missing. 

  The Federal Government’s decision not to probe the minister was attributed to the fact that Alison-Madueke is not just only an in-law to the president but also from the same state.

  The presidency denied this, saying :“The Federal Government cannot set up a probe panel just on things that have not been substantiated as such. The information I have is that the House of Representatives is looking into the matter and they want to invite the honourable minister. Definitely, the right thing is to wait for the outcome of such an interaction before anybody can decide to do anything.”

Minister’s challenges 

AS the minister of petroleum resources in Nigeria, she has to battle to handle different challenges, which are not investor-friendly.  Such challenges include cost of environmental remediation from years of militancy and pipeline vandalism long before her time; maintaining the level of government investment in oil and gas while meeting pressing social needs; funding required to achieve gas flare-out is significant and grows with increased oil production; ageing oil production facilities built in the early and mid-seventies requiring modernisation; building indigenous technology capability in complex deep water environments; indigenous participation and the pace of human capacity development and crude oil and petroleum product theft.

  Crude oil theft has been a major challenge for the minister, which at a time she described as another face of terrorism.

  According to her, the grave phenomenon of oil theft and its global support system represents another face of terrorism, which has continued to remain an obstacle to the nation’s high economic growth trajectory.

Stakeholders pay tributes

THE Chairman, Society for Petroleum Explorationists (SPE), Emeka Ene, congratulated Nigeria on the feat, describing it as a very positive development for the country. 

   “The appointment has again, put Nigeria on the world stage and in a position of leadership at a time when there is a lot of uncertainty in the global oil and gas market. It is expected that the minister will bring a new perspective to the global stage, with the experience she has deployed managing a very critical oil and gas industry in Nigeria.”

   Ene who is also the Chairman of the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria, (PETAN), said: “It would project Nigeria in a very positive light and will also strategically position our energy sector to be further competitive in the international market.

  “I think it’s a major milestone. Don’t forget that leadership has no gender, and what we find out is that historically, female leaders come at a very turbulent time and have always brought a new perspective, and long-term solutions to problems that have been intractable. So we will have to support her as a country and I believe it’s an opportunity to showcase our talents, just as the late Riliwan Lukman did, as the OPEC secretary.”

   The Managing Director, Danvic Concept, Afe Mayowa: said: “Congratulations to Nigeria. I think it is another way of appreciating us  and  the role we play in the whole world. This is far away from all the reports on corruption that we have been getting. On behalf of our association, and as a past president of National Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) I want to particularly extend our heartfelt congratulations to the oil and gas sector and the president for this recognition by OPEC. It is good for us as a country, because it is something that we have been looking forwards to.”

 On the falling crude prices, Mayowa advised the new OPEC president : “The fall in crude oil prices is a big challenge for her. But one thing she should solidly do is to make sure that OPEC does not regret that they have a woman as the president. There is no better time to prove it than now. She should make a difference and work with her team to stabilise oil prices.

 “The fall in crude prices has elicited concerns by many countries and if she can put all measures in place to stabilise the price, she would have given a place to women on the global scene.”

  The Programme Manager, Nigerian Natural Resource Charter (NNRC), Ademola Oshodi, said: “The appointment really is the furtherance of the interest of Nigerians in general. Obviously, she is a controversial figure within an equally controversial sector. The appointment should not cloud the difficult period OPEC is going through with the huge fall in oil prices, and immense challenges facing the Nigerian economy. The urgency to diversify the economy cannot also be understated.”