After months of speculations, busines mogul, Dr Uche Ogah, has made public, his intention to vie for the governorship position in Abia State come 2015. During a visit, he told Abia PDP executive members that he was conscripted into the gubernatorial race by divine design and joined the fray in obedience to avert Jonah’s experience. He averred that his candidature will ensure victory for the party. BONIFACE OKORO witnessed the visit and now reports

Billionaire business mogul and oil magnate, Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah (USO), on Tuesday, June 17, 2014, ended the speculations about his governorship ambition. On that bright, sunny afternoon, the lanky chattered accountant and President of Masters Energy took a bold step by visiting the Abia State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) secretariat on Finbarrs’ Road, Umuahia. There, he informed members of the party executive committee (EXCO) of his intention to contest for the governorship position of the state come 2015.

He was accompanied on the visit by notable Abia political figures, including Chief Empire Kanu, a former Nigerian Ambassador to Argentina, Chief Emeka Atuma, a former member of House of Representatives, Dr Maxwell Ndukwe Adindu, a former Minority Leader of Abia State House of Assembly and a former member of the state executive council, amongst others. Also present were teeming members of five Pro-Uche Ogah groups.

As the crowd settled down, a man simply introduced as Okosisi (Iroko tree) Obingwa, was invited to address the audience. Ironically, Obingwa, hypothetically, parades the highest number of potential governorship hopefuls. Since the state governor, Chief Theodore Orji, hinted that it would be just to allow Abia South senatorial zone (Ukwa/Ngwa political bloc) to produce the next governor of the state, 98 per cent of those being speculated to be interested in grabbing the exalted seat come from Obingwa.

But Okosisi dismissed them, saying that Ogah, who comes from Uturu in Isuikwuato local government area -which is in Abia North Senatorilal zone, was a better material than all the gladiators from his home council. He said most of them have held public and elective offices which they failed to use to improve the welfare of their people, adding that they would not do better if trusted with the task of governing the state.

He posited that Ogah, a philanthropist of immense proportions and dimensions, would take Abia to greater heights. He said Abia PDP was lucky to have Ogah in its fold, stressing that had he declared his interest to vie for the exalted governorship seat on the platform of another party, PDP would have found him a hard nut to crack. “Give power to Uche Ogah and it will be well with Abia, it will be well with us,” he submitted.

Next, Ambassador Empire Kanu, introduced as leader of the Uche Ogah delegation, was invited to address the gathering.

“We are here,” he said, “because of Dr Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah. We have come to let you know of his aspiration to contest for governorship in 2015 in Abia state.”

Kanu continued “His name is divine because he has not been entirely chosen by chance but by epistemological origin. Dr. Uchechukwu Ogah has a divine calling to take over the mantle of leadership from our extra-ordinary performing governor of our state, Dr. T.A.Orji.”

Inviting his principal to personally state their mission himself, Kanu said “I will want to at this point to invite our principal to speak for himself and by himself. I have the singular honour to call on the President of Masters Energy Group, with 13 subsidiary companies, a chartered accountant, an acclaimed banker, an astute business mogul in the class of Dangote, a philanthropist of the highest order, a Christian, an Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON), the sensational young man from Uturu in Isuikwuato LGA, Dr. Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah, to speak to you.”

Amidst a thunderous ovation, Ogah took it from there, thrilling the crowd with his sonorous voice, eloquence and thoughtful logic.

“I am most delighted, most humbled to be here today,” he began. “Today is part of what we do; we have been going around consulting. On the day of our declaration, we will let you know. This is just part of our routine consultation. And for the fact that we are here, we have come to consult with the members of the exco of PDP in Abia state. And I want to say, thank you for the opportunity you have given to us. Thank you for receiving us. We are sorry for inconveniencing you with a large crowd of people that are here but we appreciate you because in your normal self as a father, you will accommodate everybody. So, we want to thank you so much and God bless you.”

He appreciated every pro- Uche Ogah group which stormed the venue in their numbers, saying they attended even when he did not make his mission public. “I want to say that I appreciate all of you from the bottom of my heart, that you guys are wonderful set of people; that even when I didn’t broadcast it, you people, just merely hearing it, gathered yourselves to be here today. That shows the love you have for me, that show the feeling you have for me, that shows the essence and value you placed about me in your hearts. And I want to say thank you so much. God bless you so much.”

He started by introducing himself as a child of grace. “Mr Chairman,” Ogah said,”the man standing before you here today is a man that has grown out from grace. Everything about Dr Uche Ogah is as a result of grace. There is nothing that I am that is of my own making. Everything I have, everything I am, is of God.”

Ogah told the crowd that hitherto, he had been averse to politics and had avoided it like a plague. He went ahead to inform the audience that by joining the fray that is the Abia 2015 governorship race he was only obeying a divine directive to avert the experience of the biblical Jonah, therefore the exercise in its entirety, is divinely designed. He was very emphatic that God conscripted him into the race. Below is his narrative about how he was drafted into the governorship race, and by extension, politics.

“For me, there is only one thing I love doing when God gives me an assignment, I love it because, sometimes, some of us are like Jonah, because God will send you on assignment and you will say you will not go and you will be treated like Jonah. And I don’t want to be like Jonah.

“The essence while we are here today is to consult, to tell the exco that by the grace of God, given 2015, I will like to contest the post of governorship of Abia state.

“You know me very well. I have contributed for parties, for politics; but I never discussed politics. If you come to my house and talk about politics, I will kick you out. People know me for that. In fact, it has been a very difficult thing for me to reconcile with some of my friends because over the period, I have told them off about politics. I said I don’t want to go into politics, I just want to be on my own; make my little money quietly and be able to touch the lives of people in the society. I have a symbol in life, that every day I see human beings, I must put smile on somebody’s face.

“But you know in life, we are all like pencils in the hand of God; you cannot decide what you are going to be. It is only God that can tell you what you will be and all you need to do is to follow the directions of God.


So, when I got home, because I lost my peace, I could not do anything, I was restless. I decided to call 21 pastors, my friends, I said look, there is a problem, we need to pray, I don’t know what is going on and while we were praying, they said they Lord wants you to go and be the governor of Abia State.

“I said please, it is not possible. I said please, I have brothers that are politicians; I don’t want to go into politics. I want to be like Richard Blankson, I want to be like Dangote. I want to just make my money, just move around, and be free.” He was interrupted by a deafening ovation from the crowd.

“So, I said please, let’s pray so that God will change it. The pastors said no, ‘God said.’ I said okay, let’s pray that, because everybody knows that our governor has been saying that he wants to take the governorship to the South, let it be 2023 because one thing about me is that I don’t like controversy. I am a very straight forward person, very objective.

“As we continued, in one of the nights when we were praying, they said that God said that the caption for the manifesto for this project shall be called Abia Rejoice. And that is when it dawned on me that God is serious about this project and they said that God said it is 2015, not 2023. I was confused. But one thing about me is that when it has to do with God, I am a very blunt person.”

That was the gospel about how the governorship ambition of billionaire philanthropist, Dr Uche Ogah, was born. He went on to tell the audience how the hand of God has been upon his life, particularly, how God led him to establish his Masters Energy group.

The industrialist said God called him to establish Masters Energy because of his concern about the plight of the common man in the face of soaring price of petroleum products in the South East. His narrates further: “When I was in the bank, I wanted to run my own personal bank with my friends. We were five Assistant General Managers, our intention was to raise money, open our own banks.

“By December 2005, I was made a Manager in Zenith Bank and was given a car. I came home for Christmas. As I came into Enugu, I bought fuel near Nike Lake Hotel at the cost of N130 per litre while I bought fuel in Lagos N65. I felt so bad. I took my car, reversed, and parked the car. I now went to the back of my car and started crying. I said God, why your people will be suffering.

“It is not about me because I can afford to pay N130 but there are people that cannot pay this money. What about that young woman that will come from the community to sell the leaves that she has made, what about the man that will come to sell the yams he has harvested. And a little voice said you can do it and that is how I started Masters Energy in 2006.