About a year ago the oil and gas industry was thrown into mourning because of the tragic incidence of the ill-fated Dana Airline crash in Lagos which killed several people among which were some oil and gas industry players.
One of them was Levi Ajuonuma, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) spokesman who tenaciously carried out the work of improving the image of the corporation and the industry even though a lot of industry stakeholders were not comfortable with the way he handled many of his assignments.
For eight years he was in the national limelight parrying blows directed at NNPC and ensuring that members of the public understand the challenges faced by the corporation that is saddled with the task of managing the nation’s hydrocarbon wealth.
In spite of this the industry has not felt the same since his exit as the enthusiasm and the passion he brought to the job that has been missed, especially when it came to introducing his principals at occasions.
On such occasions, he regularly positioned those journalists he considered friendly and in extreme cases those he considered as too troublesome to ask questions from his principals and after giving these few the opportunities the rest journalists are fenced off.
Like I said he was not bad to everybody; he had his own good side, that was why at the recently held Offshore Technology Conference OTC which was held in Houston, Texas in the United States of America, the oil and gas industry operators decided to remember him for his contribution towards the previous events that had taken place.
He was given a post-humous PETAN Outstanding Leadership Award in recognition of his distinguished and outstanding contributions to the development of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. For eight years, he was in charge of organising NNPC’s participation at OTC.
For Seinde Fademi, a public affairs analyst, Ajuonuma came on board when the NNPC and the oil industry was being pilloried by the public and he had to start doing image laundering for the corporation. His words: “It could be very trying to manage the image of an institution that is largely misunderstood by the public. But Ajuonuma lived up to the duty, he was never tired of engaging the public and explaining the position of NNPC.”
