RILWANU LUKMON’S PETROLEUM CAREER: EARLY MOVER ADVANTAGE?
Rilwanu Lukman, the legendary petroleum industry expert, died yesterday. He was 75.
As a career blogger, I was interested in what made him tick.
But first thing: how much do you know about the Zaria-born guru?
He was, to me, Nigeria’s – and probably Africa’s – number 1 oil industry expert.
He lived and breathed petroleum.
He was the Chair of the team that drafted the now controverted Petroleum Industry Bill. He had been Petroleum Minister many times. He had been the Chair and Secretary General of OPEC, the global oil cartel.
He had been around probably since oil was found in Nigeria. Okay, not exactly.
But guess what? Nigeria’s first commercial oil discovery was in 1956. Rilwanu was already a graduate – not just of any course but – of Mining in 1962. He must have gained admission in 1958 or 59 to finish by 1962. Of course, petroleum is one of the resources you mine.
Will I be wrong to say his career was as old as oil and gas industry in Nigeria? I don’t think so. Since he graduated from College of Arts, Science, and Technology, Zaria (now Ahmadu Bello University), he had gone ahead to have all his career in mining, from 1962, when petroleum was not even the chief revenue spinner for our economy, till as recently as 2010 during the acting regime of President Jonathan.
He got other degrees – from the famous Imperial College, London; to the University of Mining & Metallurgy, Austria; to McGill University, Canada; to the University of Bologna, Italy, earning degrees from Mining Economics to Chemical Engineering. And I’m not talking about getting certificates after well established career, he was in all these schools in the sixties to early seventies, when oil was just coming of age in Nigeria.
Did I hear anyone still say he was another unqualified product of quota system?
No one knew the oil and gas industry like Lukmon.
He’d been around almost since the beginning of minerals mining in Nigeria. He ate and lived mineral resources.
There goeth the alpha (not sure about omega) of petroleum in Nigeria.
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