By Ediri Ejoh

Sir Emeka Okwuosa, CON is the Group CEO of Oilserv Group of companies, one of the firms engaged in the execution of Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline construction. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sir Emeka Okwuosa Foundation (SEOF) and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Dame Irene Okwuosa Memorial Hospital (DIOMH), a signature project of SEOF. Philanthropism is his lifestyle and his philanthropic acts span across healthcare, education, socioeconomic empowerment and sustainable infrastructure.

DIOMH, located in Oraifite, Ekwusigo LGA, Anambra State, specialises in cardiovascular surgery. Last week, the Hospital concluded its biannual medical mission in Oraifite where 12 adult Cardiac Surgery patients were operated upon over the span of 10 days at a heavily subsidised cost courtesy of SEOF and VOOM Foundation, a US-based non-for-profit organisation focused on open-heart surgeries and procedures. During the medical mission, SEOF also conducted a one-day free health fair where 645 individuals were treated at DIOMH’s newly-opened primary healthcare clinic for common ailments and provided with drugs free-of-charge.

VANGUARD caught up with Okwuosa, and his daughter, Mrs. Chibundu Okwuosa-Nwadei, a member of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the SEOF, during the medical mission. He gave rich insight into the various activities of SEOF and other issues.    

Sir, can you introduce yourself?   

My name is Chukwuemeka Okwuosa, I am the Chairman of Oilserv Group of companies, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Sir Emeka Okwuosa Foundation and also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dame Irene Okwuosa Memorial Hospital. I am from Oraifite and that’s the location where we are at the moment.  

The Sir Emeka Okwuosa Foundation (SEOF) has made some positive contributions to the development of the Oraifite community. Can you tell us the rationale behind this Foundation idea and what it has done so far?

The basic and underlying factors that have driven the entire mindset are who I am as a person and my upbringing. I come from a family of philanthropists. My parents practiced philanthropy to the best of their ability because as a young person growing up, I saw it, I didn’t need to be told it because I saw it in action, they helped the community. In fact, at a time, if you came into our place in the ’70s and ‘80s, you would see multiple people living there, some of which we never knew where they came from. My parents took care of them, paid their school fees, they lived there, they grew up there. Over the past few years, some of them used to come here to say that they want to see me, some of them live outside the country, they come to introduce themselves to me. So I saw that my dad and mom also contributed a lot to society, from the building of our church, All Saints Anglican Church, to Oraifite Central School and all manners of facilities here. They were doing all that and that easily caught up with me as a person and I saw the virtue in that. The Foundation that we are running today is basically being used to organise the whole process of delivering philanthropic services to communities. We kicked off originally by trying to bridge the gap that we saw within the community in infrastructure, water, road and agricultural facilities like the Garri Processing Factory we built here in the ’80s. Today we have a newer factory operating, which is about to commence production in this town as we speak and the Foundation built also. That led later on to taking up scholarships for indigent but brilliant people, which started more than 20 years ago and accumulated later on in addressing the issue of building a school. Over time also, we have helped people get medical attention all over the world, some in India, South Africa and other places. Then we said why not build a hospital here to be able to achieve this same thing? So this is an organic activity that is driven entirely by a sense of purpose and a sense of service to humanity.  

The Foundation seems to have been consistent in the provision of humanitarian services but, apart from what you have done so far, are there plans to expand your reach?   

We are already doing that when it comes to education, health, infrastructural amenities like roads. We just completed the inspection of a major erosion control project that we executed — a total of 1.5 km of drain interconnecting different areas where we’ve had very serious erosion issues and channeling the water to the main river.  The essence of that is actually to ensure that all the erosion problems are controlled not only now but in the future. Now to address what you are saying, the medical activities we have here are not meant just for the community. I am sure if you check, you’ll see amongst the people that had been operated upon here are people that come from different states of the country.  One of them is from Borno State so we don’t limit who will benefit from our medical services. On education, if you go to the school we built there, Dame Irene Okwuosa Memorial Convent (DIOMECO), less than 10% of the students there come from this community so the school is attracting people from everywhere. When they apply and they pass the examinations, they are offered admission based on merit. So, between education and healthcare already in as much as they are located here, they serve a wider community. But like I said, this is organic, as we move on, we’re going to have more programs that will address a wider coverage within the country.  

how are you seeing that that transfer of knowledge and experience, and how are you seeing yourself position to be able to say I want to live up to this? Just tell us how it feels, working directly with your dad.   

It’s a very loaded question but let me start from the core of things. It stems from growing up and from not just my dad but both of my parents and my grandparents. I have always been pushed to be excellent so that in itself is nothing new. One thing that I have also always appreciated is that you can see the things that the Foundation has, whether it’s DIOMH or DIOMECO, most things are based out of here, Oraifite, although that doesn’t mean that our geographical reach is not broader than just our immediate vicinity. So I have grown up valuing my home, valuing my country and also understanding that the government does a lot in terms of people’s welfare but it’s also incumbent upon everyone, including myself, to do whatever it is that I can to make our communities better and to help the people who are in need of help. And so, from that aspect, there has been a transfer of values. 

In terms of the transfer of knowledge and working directly with my dad, particularly when it comes to the Foundation, I have been on the Board of Trustees and seen how he operates, which has been invaluable. We all learn every day and, luckily, I have someone I can learn directly and quickly from. When I initially got involved with the Foundation a few years ago during university, my dad was quite busy so he empowered me to say okay, these are the changes I think we should be making, I think we could restructure this, I think we could rebrand. We are in the process of doing a lot of these things now as we speak and we have the management team in place. All these things are things that we didn’t have originally and I think that’s because he has the confidence in me and his other children to say okay you have these ideas and you see where this can go so take it and run.    

Mrs. Chibundu Okwuosa-Nwadei: From all indications, it looks like you are more interested in the Foundation and not the corporate world, or are you involved in the corporate world and to what extent and capacity?   

I am interested in everything that my dad does, to be honest, and I have always had kind of residual knowledge of everything going on. There are several of us children and I have just gravitated I guess more towards the Foundation. As I said, my interest in actually becoming involved started when I was in university and it was at that point I wrote a report for my dad analysing the great work that had been done so far and explaining that I thought there was more that we could do. Ever since then, the Foundation has built DIOMH and DIOMECO, and has done a lot of other things. So I felt that I could add the most value in this area and it’s always been an area of interest. As a practicing lawyer, a lot of my work was pro bono related and I have always enjoyed helping people so I just felt it was the right path.  

Sir Emeka Okwuosa, CON: Does this Foundation reach out to places where Oilserv Group operates in terms of corporate social responsibility? What are you doing in those areas where you operate?

Corporate social responsibility is a bedrock of all that Oilserv Group do. But in areas where we work, we don’t use the Foundation for such activities. We use the companies that we operate to deliver these and we have massive corporate social responsibility packages that we put to the communities. In both the communities where we have our bases and the communities where we deliver the projects, we assist with a range of things from employment to the provision of amenities of all sorts. For example, during the COVID period, we imported into Nigeria medical equipment and palliatives worth more than five hundred thousand dollars that we distributed across all communities. We also did a lot of distribution of foodstuffs when people were locked down and couldn’t move. So we get involved but not using the avenue of the Foundation because the Foundation is not related to that directly. We use the operating companies and relate to the people directly to help achieve that.

Sir Emeka Okwuosa, CON: Let’s look at how far you’ve come now, what are the projections in the next few years. Let’s say five year projections for the Hospital. Are you looking at scaling up. For the School, are you looking to increasing scholarships or your support for schools. What are your strategies in the next five years, particularly for the Foundation?  

I’m not sure I will answer it better than my daughter. She’s there for the future, I’m going to retire very soon. She has the vision and she’s been driving this very strongly and her husband has been great in putting a lot of help in that. So she’s in the position to answer that.

Mrs. Chibundu Okwuosa-Nwadei: 

Over the next five years, there are a lot of plans in terms of expansion but, in the immediate term, our focus is on sustainability. We want to ensure that we are functioning sustainably before we look to grow and expand to an even bigger level. In terms of sustainability, that means being sustainably funded and making sure that all of our programs are running sustainably.

There are many aspects to that as you can imagine. It’s not always the quickest or simplest process to get through. We don’t want to be reliant on just one source of funding so we have begun looking at local and international partnerships. We’re now working with a lot more partners than we were before. Our ongoing medical missions now have different partnerships, including with Air Peace when it comes to doctors and other volunteers flying in. We have partnerships with Innoson in terms of cars and one of the ambulances the Hospital has was provided by that company.

Even when we talk about international partnerships, we now have a new primary healthcare clinic that’s just been built. It was built in conjunction with Voom Foundation as well as Texas A&M University.  Some of their students that did part of the design are here right now volunteering for the medical mission. So those are things we’re looking towards to scale up and to grow so that we can ensure sustainability as I said. In terms of expansion, we have plans to expand the Hospital. Aside from the primary health care clinic, we’re also looking to build another facility that will be able to cater for more people not just in terms of providing accommodation but also other services that are not cardiovascular-related. So, within the next five years, we’re hoping that’s something that will be able to be realised.

In terms of education, we’re hoping to provide more scholarships. We’re also looking to grow the number of people in DIOMECO. So we’re looking to do more of what’s already going on but also create new programs. We want to launch some flagship programs, including the Women Enterprise Program (WEP) that will be targeted at women business owners who need access to things like funding from the right people, knowledge about getting market access, guidance on how to properly pitch their businesses and things like that. These are all the things we’re working on and committed to actualise ing in the next few years.  

Sir Emeka Okwuosa, CON: Let us dive into the soft side, or should we just think that all that you do is read books and signing files? Let us know your soft side of life and your hobbies when you’re not working?  

I was smiling because sometimes I ask myself what hobby I have besides what I do day-to-day. The fact is that I look at it quite differently from other people. My day-to-day life and what I do has become a way of life for me and I interspace it with whatever that’s a hobby. But traveling is a way of life for me and it’s more for business but helps to keep me going. I’m hardly in one place for more than one or two or three days. Meeting people and, of course, getting involved in social events that are not necessarily related to what my Foundation does also keeps me going. My life takes me not just within Nigeria, I live here and I live out of the country as well. Out of the country, I have other hobbies. I’m a car enthusiast so that also keeps me going. That’s a different thing of its own that I cannot practice here. I also like to read and I like to acquire knowledge besides the knowledge that’s concerned with business. So, for me, that’s what it is.