By Prince Ugochukwu Nwanjoku
Peter Ndubuisi Mbah has achieved a huge chain of revolutionary successes in the public and private sectors. This feat defines him as a leader with a midas-touch spirit that spans industry, government and philanthropy.
His life trajectories are put together by that quip which says the elevator of life is out of order and the wo/man heading for the top will have to use the stairs….one step at time.
The steps of life Mbah has taken thus far were a mixture of the rough and the smooth; many of them taken with great pains and discomfort. The ladder steps have made the proverbial man who knows where the shoe pinches, giving him the ability to decipher the colour of pains and power to intuitively recognize someone who lacks. Born on March 17,1972, in Enugu State, to the family of Chief and Mrs. Gilbert Mbah, Dr. Mbah hails from Owo, in Nkanu East Local Government Area.
An International maritime lawyer, business magnate, public administrator and philanthropist, this young goal-getter is the founder and chief executive officer of Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited, an indigenous oil and gas company, which has displaced dominant players in the industry and taken the number one position in this highly placed industry by eliminating facilities that have enabled the industry cut down on so much cost and turn-around time in operation.
Renowned with a corporate watchword that is driven by an innovative mindset, this watchword has helped Peter Mbah’s Pinnacle to disrupt methods and conventions, into becoming a numero uno force and dominant player in the sector. In climbing the stairs to where he is today, Dr. Mbah’s buzzword is that inside this short life is his packaged gift, frustration, disappointments, rough tackles but each step with very strong determination. In fact, he describes himself as a man whose life can be summarized as a race run with an amazing vigour. In climbing to the top, Mbah has walked steadily through a thorns-laden path, to arrive at this pinnacle of his career.
A holder of an LLB. honours from the University of East London (UEL), during his time in school, Mbah acquitted himself brilliantly as a first class organizer of men, with a long track record of a leader and intellectual. Between 1998 and 1999, he was the president of the Students’ Law Society. During this period, the society won the Students’ Union prize and certificate of achievement for the ‘Most Productive Society of the Year.’ He was also member, Students’ Representative Council of the UEL, from 1999 to 2000, as well as being Member of the School Law Board between 1999 and 2000, where he represented the Final Year students.
Peter Mbah also won the First prize of the University of East London Mooting Competition, and led the University’s team to the International Negotiation Competition. In addition, he was a recipient of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn Major Bar Vocational Course Award in 2000. Within this period at UEL, Dr. Mbah distinguished himself as a foremost student representative whose knack for excellence and organization of men was unexampled. He was later called to the Nigerian Bar and awarded the Bachelor of Law (BL) at the Nigerian Law School. He did his youth service in Lagos with the Law firm of Udeh & Associates and was lucky to drink from the brooks of law under the tutelage of the inimitable Justice Nnaemeka Agu.
Peter Mbah’s academic records and grasp of administration, even in his student days, could be gleaned from the testimonials to his leadership given by his former lecturers and tutors at the University of East London, as well as here in Nigeria. Colin Sumner, Professor of Law and Head of the School of Law at the UEL, wrote this about him:
“Peter has always struck me as an extremely determined and immensely capable young man. He is very sharp and alert, despite his easy-going manner… He resurrected a dominant body and won the University’s prize for the most productive society of the year… (he) led our student team in the International Negotiation Competition.”
Peter Mbah made significant impact and strides while in the public service of his home state of Enugu as commissioner for Finance and Economic Development under Governor Chimaroke Ogbonnia Nnamani. There, as a testament to the uncommon development he made in the state’s fiscal operation, through the strategy document he evolved which became the operating document for Enugu state government’s development programmes, the NewsWatch magazine’s special publication of July 3, 2006, described Mbah as “a man ahead of his time.” He had earlier served as Chief of Staff to the Governor in 2003.
His business and professional track records have taken him through spheres of activity such as import trade, Oil and Gas sales and distributions, maritime logistics and public service. As diverse as his career in the oil industry has been, its consistent underpinning factor has been the passion for organization, corporate governance and the perpetual search of knowledge. Pinnacle Oil and Gas Nigeria’s renown as the most dominant downstream oil and gas business has been remarkably underscored, even more emphatically, with the recent lunch of the Company’s ultramodern Offshore Petroleum Products intake and Off-take terminals in the Lekki Free Zone, Lagos, commissioned by the President, Commander of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR. The first of it’s kind in West Africa. The facility, the first of a planned three phases, currently boasts of two offshore moorings and 300,000,000 litres of petroleum storage, a multi-million dollars-worth more than 5, 000, 000 metric tones of storage and import, export facility at the Lekki Free Trade Zone, which is a West Africa-unprecedented venture aimed at battling the operational bottlenecks resulting from the intensity of berthing vessels at the Lagos jetties. This is already changing the face of Nigerian downstream oil and gas industry, effectively removing numerous inefficiencies in the current product import processes. Its core areas of remarkable interventions in the oil industry are petroleum products importation, marketing and distribution, supply chain infrastructure, marine logistics, haulage operations and storage facilities.
Mbah’s Pinnacle Oil and Gas wears on its lapel and is celebrated in the oil and gas industry for its in-depth grasp of the sector and the business landscape of Nigeria in the six geological zones. It parades an understanding of strategic and well-structured apparatus of distribution channels in the oil industry which act as its cutting edge. In its 14 years of operation, Pinnacle has served several multi-national organizations and high net-worth individuals, both in the private and public sector of the Nigerian economy, as a significant player and one of the driving forces of the layer of the Nigerian economy.
In addition to the huge strides he has made in the area of business, human management and public service, Dr. Mbah is passionate about community development and service to humanity. His passion for intervention in community development is piloted by a zeal that can best described as a daily and continuous drive for excellence, only made possible by his untiring resilience and personal ‘can do’ spirit. In line with this, Mbah is also the founder of Peter Mbah Foundation (PMF), a not-for profit and non-political organization, an all integrated innovative initiative and humanitarian oriented project aimed at improving the health of people and standards of living in rural communities. Peter Mbah Foundation kicked off a pilot scheme designed to operate in three communities of Enugu State. The first phase of the pilot scheme is an acquisition of layouts in some communities, of ultra-modern Motorized Hospital Beds, diagnostic equipment, radiographic instruments, x-ray facilities, school equipment, computer sets, laptops, etc. for pupils and students.
Ndi Enugu, Tomorrow Is Here.
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