By Chidi Iketuonye
After close to two years of trying, we finally got to sit down and chat with Dr.Okey Enelamah, former Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment, and it was well worth the wait. In fact, the interview was like unearthing a gold mine of valuablewisdom, about the man, his life and times, and his participation in governance and the public sector. It was an exclusive, not in the sense of a first or only interview, but in the scope and nature of the enriching discussion.
In terms of career, Okey Enelamah is a hybrid product of equally great but somewhat parallel institutions. A graduate medical doctor from one of Nigeria’s most rigorous and competitive medical schools, University of Nigeria, Nsukka; he is also a chartered accountant and business consultant trained by the reputable firm, Arthur Andersen. In addition, he is a graduate of the Harvard Business School with an internationally distinguished career in private equity and venture capital finance, having co-founded African Capital Alliance, the leading and pioneering Private Equity firm in Nigeria.
In public service, his emergence signalled a national yearning to ‘position square pegs in square holes’. His private sector experience and credentials were appropriate for his national assignment as Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment. It was therefore quite engaging to share both his insights and experience on matters of trade, investment and industrialisation.
Perhaps by virtue of his diverse academic training, beginning with his early days at Government College Umuahia, Okey Enelamah is an innate educationist. He is concerned with initiating and sustaining a functional, sound and socially relevant education for the next generation, and is involved in a number of initiatives towards this cause.
A product of a world-class education and an avid ‘student of life’, his manner of speech is measured with exactitude, as he carefully and thoughtfully articulates his views on a wide range of issues. He also exudes compassion as a Pastor and a family man who is very much involved in the lives of his children.
It would be disingenuous for anyone to think or expect that any third-world economy can be transformed overnight. Perhaps it is the failure to reckon with this truism that often leads citizens to opt for strong-arm remedies instead of paying attention to gradual institutional change and capacity building.Dr. Enelamah focused on institutional changes during his tenure as Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment with a clear agenda to create an enabling business environment and improve the ease of doing business. Under his watch, Nigeria was ranked as one of the top ten reforming countries and moved up 24 places on the World Bank ease of doing business ranking. In addition to improving the business environment, Dr. Enelamah and his team also initiated empowerment programmes that disbursed grants to small and medium sized enterprises and provided capacity building training. About 1,717 SMEs received grants via the Growth and Employment (GEM) project, over 21,000 received capacity building training, and over 2 million loans were given to small businesses via the Bank of Industry-administered GEEP (Government Enterprise & Empowerment Programme) within a period of three years.
Regarding industrialisation, they sought to give bite to existing plans by establishing Special Economic Zones. They came up with a plan called Project Made in Nigeria for Export (MINE), which seeks to drive domestic productivity based on competitive advantage. It is hoped that the present administration would continue the implementation of this impressive groundwork. We sat down with the ex-minister and here are the insights he shared with us:
Q: Tell us a bit about yourself and your career path
A: Let us start with my education. I attended Government College Umuahia, which is one of the historically great colleges in Nigeria, founded by Reverend Robert Fisher in 1929. Currently we are involved in a project to restore the college which was known as the Eton of the East. I was there between 1974 and 1979, and then proceeded from there to University of Nigeria, Nsukka where I did my first year in the sciences before moving to the Enugu Campus to study Medicine. As a matter of fact, I was originally admitted to study Pharmacy, but I then moved to Enugu Campus where I switched to Medicine. I graduated in 1985, and did my house job in the East, at a hospital in Aba, and then did my youth service in Lagos. After my housemanship and youth service in Lagos, I practised briefly as a doctor in Lagos, and then I decided to pursue a career in business, which – as you know – is a fairly radical shift.
That shift required a number of things including prayers, but eventually I was introduced to Arthur Andersen, which was one of the leading accounting firms at the time, both globally and in Nigeria. I joined Arthur Andersen in late 1988, and spent four years with them, working in Lagos, Nigeria and also in London, UK. In the same period, I qualified as a Chartered Accountant. Following my time at Arthur Andersen,in 1992, I gained admission to Harvard Business School (HBS), to pursue an MBA. While at HBS, in between my two years of study, I worked for Goldman Sachs in New York and in London as a Summer Associate. I finished from Harvard Business School in 1994 and started working in the investment business, first in New York and then in Johannesburg. I worked in New York between 1994 and 1995 and then in Johannesburg from 1995 until January 1998. I then moved back to Nigeria to start African Capital Alliance which I co-founded and served as CEO for 17 years, till November 2015, when I was invited to join the cabinet of President Buhari. I served in Government until May 2019 and then returned to African Capital Alliance as Chairman. I should also mention that after I graduated from Harvard Business School, and while working in New York, I started the Chartered Financial Analyst professional exams, which is the professional qualification for investment analysts, and earned my CFA while I was in South Africa.
Q: How challenging was that shift from Medicine to Finance?
A: It was a significant change – some would say a radical change. But in studying Medicine, unlike in the US for instance, you can go straight from secondary school to study a professional course like Medicine, Engineering, Law and so on. So even though I had a one-year stint in Nsukka amongst the sciences, Medicine looked very attractive, and I was quite young, about sixteen years old then. It looked alluring and noble and so I took on the challenge. But after I went through the rigour of qualifying as a doctor, I soon realized I wasn’t as excited about practicing medicine as I deemed one should be. In my view, Medicine is a calling: something one should be passionate about, as I am passionate about business. Perhaps a sense of destiny may have played a role in my decision to switch, as I cannot give you a completely rational reason why I preferred a business career to a medical career. Both were excellent careers if pursued with a spirit of excellence, but there was something inside me that drew me in some respects away from Medicine towards business and finance. This desire then found expression when I was told of a gentleman, an engineer, who left UAC and joined Arthur Andersen. Arthur Andersen was, at the time, hiring non-accountants and training them as business professionals and consultants. They were interested in people with top grades from the University. Even though I studied Medicine, which is not graded and classified as other courses, this gentleman who went to them studied Engineering, so I asked if they would be interested in a medical doctor. Arthur Andersen was sceptical and would accept me only if I passed the test and agreed to go down the accounting path, because they felt I would not go through the rigour of the exams unless I was truly keen to change careers. They didn’t want me to just do consulting work, because they felt that would be a less-committal path to a career with them, as I could easily decide to return to Medicine. They also felt becoming a chartered accountant would demonstrate real commitment on my part, and they were right. I took the test, passed, went through several interviews and ultimately joined the firm late in 1988. The experience was enriching; I was trained in Europe twice, and seconded to the firm’s London office in 1990.I was given time off each time I had to write the professional accounting exams, which I passed, winning national prizes at various levels. By the time I completed my four years with them, it was clear they had transformed me into a young business professional that could pursue a career in finance and business. It was then cemented when I gained admission to the Harvard Business School to pursue an MBA. I was ready, when I finished, to begin a career in investment, which was really my calling. It is said you have to live life forward but you understand it when you look back. Looking back, I see what was drawing me was a career in investment and finance and I have enjoyed it.
Q: You were given an award as a Baker Scholar in Harvard Business School. What does it entail?
A: At HBS, like in most academic programmes, they classify their graduates into high distinction, distinction and pass. The high distinction cadre comprises the top five percent and are designated as George F. Baker scholars. I also won an award for Finance in my Class and was designated a Loeb Fellow. It was a good thing because it gives one credibility, especially when you are seeking employment. For instance, the Dean recommended me to the gentleman I eventually worked for.
Q: How relevant to modern society is the content of formal education in Nigeria and Africa?
A: First, let us consider education itself before we deal with formal education. Education is fundamental but it is also wide ranging. Education begins with the family, and expands to churches and other religious institutions that are all involved in educating youths and individuals. Formal education, however, is fundamental because it trains people and prepares them for work, for future careers, and for being responsible citizens. If you look at some of us in the working population, the quality of education we received has a direct bearing on the success of our careers. I told you earlier that I went to Government College, Umuahia. Even at that time in the early seventies, it was an elite school. It was one of the top schools in the country and certainly in the East. They invested a lot in their students and sent us on to the university. Schools like that have produced some of the leaders in various fields, like Chinua Achebe, Professor Chukwuemeka Ike, and others. That is why we are very keen to restore Government College, Umuahia, because right now the school has deteriorated so much that it will need to be rebuilt and we owe a duty to society and those coming after us to make sure we bequeath to them what we were given or something better.
I am also part of another group trained by the Aspen Institute that is working hard to build a world class technology university in Nigeria. We think ‘STEM”, an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, can have very transformative impact on the country and the economy, as we have seen in countries like India, China and Asia more broadly.
Q: So what skills should our schools inculcate in students to make them more effective in the market place?
A: First, we need to give our children basic education. Every child should have access to sound primary and secondary education. That is because at that point some may go into vocations, while some may go on to tertiary academic institutions. When I served as a Minister, one of the things I was very interested in was to create collaboration between the business community, government, and academic institutions to make sure we prepared our people for work. By engaging these businesses and players in the economy about their specific requirements, we could identify what they were looking for and these would be fed to the training institutions. These institutions working with the trade associations and various businesses, with the government as an enabler, could then produce graduates that can be gainfully employed, as is the case with more advanced economies like Germany and Switzerland. That way, our training and education of our students would not be speculative. In countries that have thought this through, they are not educating people to see if there are any jobs out there. Rather, they know what is actually required and people are trained towards those specifications.
Q: What major initiatives should we pursue towards industrialisation?
A: First, I should mention the initiatives we pursued while I served as Minister, which thankfully have made good progress under the current Administration. There are at least five initiatives – let me summarize these top five initiatives. At the start of my tenure in government, we prepared a road map for Nigeria’s economy, and the first thing in that road map was that we wanted to create an enabling environment for businesses, the private sector, and all the key players in the economy to thrive. We consider it the primary responsibility of government to create an enabling environment where people can do business and investors would find it attractive to invest. If you do that successfully, you will find that the economy will take off! However, it is not the exclusive responsibility of the government. It is a partnership with the players in the economy. Thus, the President set up a body called the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, PEBEC, chaired by the Vice President and with me as the Vice Chairman. We also had, on the council, private sector players and some of the key agencies of government that influence how government renders services to the public and to various stakeholders. The overall aim was to make it easy to operate in the economy and receive services from the government. Interestingly, Nigeria moved up 24 places in the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking. Our target is to get to the top 100. We are not there yet but we are getting close.
On industrialisation, the previous government before ours had created a program called the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan, NIRP, which was a blueprint to industrialise Nigeria. It was a high-level document. We made a commitment to start its implementation and the President established the Nigeria Industrial Policy and Competitiveness Advisory Council (Industrial Council) which was a collaborative effort with the private sector. We invited business leaders like Aliko Dangote, Atedo Peterside and several others across a number of sectors, and also included the ministers of the leading ministries that were involved in industrialisation and the economy. The purpose of the Council was to form a partnership between business and government to help drive industrialisation. In addition, we found that the most urgent requirement beyond policy was to create the infrastructure that makes it easy for industries to set up and grow. We therefore started what we called Project Made in Nigeria for Export. The rationale behind this initiative was to build domestic manufacturing for export and local consumption – if Nigeria can manufacture competitively such that it is able to export, we will also be able to manufacture competitively for our own consumption. An aspect of this policy was to establish special economic zones that will have adequate infrastructure, like power, roads, logistics and all other services that will encourage businesses to locate there. We sought to partner with leading financial institutions in Africa like the AFREXIM Bank, with the idea that we were going to set up this Special Economic Zones across the six geopolitical zones. That was another policy we initiated and hope the present administration will continue.
The fourth area is around SMEs. We launched a number of policies to help SMEs succeed. The most important one was the overall policy launched by the Federal Government on the social intervention and investment programme, some aspects of which were executed via the Bank of Industry structures where we made funding available to various SMEs. We also worked with the World Bank on the Growth and Employment Project, GEM, a programme that focused on five sectors, where we supported thousands of SMEs in ICT, Construction and Real Estate, Light Manufacturing (including agro and industrial processing), Tourism and Hospitality, with financing and capacity building. One important thing we did was to encourage the agencies that support these SMEs under the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to collaborate with each other and also to work with PEBEC towards supporting SMEs.
The fifth area was around trade – promoting domestic, regional and international trade. We played a central role in driving Nigeria’s participation in the launch of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AFCFTA). To gain traction on AFCFTA and other trade priorities, we set up what we called the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations (NOTN). With Trade being a specialized area, we brought back one of our most qualified and experienced trade experts from the World Trade Organisation, Dr. Chiedu Osakwe. Unfortunately, he died last year but he worked throughout the time I was there, and he drove the initiative.
The final area, and by no means the least, is the promotion of investments. Investment promotion is championed primarily by the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, NIPC. We attracted its current Executive Secretary/CEO, Yewande Sadiku, to join our efforts and worked closely with her and other arms of Government to drive strategic investment promotion initiatives.
Q: As a person of faith, how relevant is your faith to your performance in the public sector?
A: Faith is best when you live it. A certain mentor of mine said, if you are not living the life, then there is nothing to preach. Whatever message one is preaching, one should be the first to demonstrate that message. Genuine faith and integrity go hand in hand. One of the biggest problems we face as a country is the issue of fighting corruption. Where a person practices faith, he becomes an example of someone who not only talks of fighting corruption but one who is living a life of probity and transparency. I am part of a network called Apostles in the Market Place, that is focused on encouraging marketplace participants to live their faith in the marketplace, not just on Sunday mornings. That way a person becomes a force for good – the light of the world as Christ said. During my time in Government, there was resistance but one of the benefits of functioning at the level of a Minister is that you are allowed to set the policy direction for your ministry and encourage people to follow it. There might be some hypocrisy in the sense that people may not always practice what they preach but at least one was able to set the tone. We have a long way to go but the thing is to get started, and if we have good examples, others will be inspired. The problem is when people get into places of responsibility and then become sympathetic with the compromises they formerly stood against. But when the people in authority are the ones standing for the right things, there will be change.
Q: Recently there has been concern with border security and closure, between protectionism and regional integration in trade, which should be our priority?
A: I would like to separate a number of things here. One has to avoid the either/or fallacy. If you look at our objectives, we want to build local industry and other capacities, and everybody will agree Nigeria would be better with more manufacturing and more locally produced goods. The question is, how do we get there? Everyone would also agree that we would benefit from a bigger, more regional market where Nigerians can sell their goods; and thirdly most people will agree that smuggling is bad for us – that we need to protect our borders to maintain geographical integrity. So it is really about how we enforce the rules of engagement in a disciplined way. The border closure is a radical step and perhaps a temporary measure, but the larger and pertinent goal is how can we create the right infrastructure and policing mechanisms to have a disciplined approach to maintaining border security. I do believe in regional integration as you know, and we pursued that agenda during my time and I am happy that, eventually, Nigeria ratified the African Continental Trade Agreement, AFCTA. I am also happy we are promoting local industry and I don’t see them in conflict.
Q: You left a stellar career to join the public service sector, given the circumstances would you do it again?
A: Let’s talk about why I did it the first time before we look at what happens if I am given another opportunity in the future. For me it was unexpected when it came, as I was deeply involved in the private sector. But it was a thing of incredible honour for your President to call you and say, “I have done my homework and you are my preferred choice from your state.”I was therefore honoured to serve, especially given that the portfolio was appropriate for me, with regards to my background. I believe I did my best and I have no regrets. I also believe others should equally be given the opportunity to serve in the future.
Presently I am happy to be back in the private sector, using the experience and exposure I gathered from the public sector to add value to the private sector and continue to support collaboration between the private sector and the public sector.
Q: Do you get time off, any hobbies?
A: I would say one of my favourite and most important hobbies is spending time with my family. I have no desire to become a workaholic but enjoy expressing my genuine commitment, interest and passion for my family and other areas of interest, such as my faith. In my spare time, I enjoy engaging in faith-based activities such asministering in my local church and engaging in community services, as well as mentorship programs for the younger generation. I also very much enjoy travelling with my family, reading and playing board games like Monopoly, Scrabble and Ludo with my wife and children.