By ENITAN ABEL JOHNGOLD ORHERUATA
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Renaissance African Energy Company Limited, Mr. Tony Attah, has reaffirmed his belief in human capital development as the most enduring form of giving back to society.
Attah, a 1987 graduate of the University of Ibadan (UI) and former resident of Independence Hall, made the pledge when the Executive of the University of Ibadan Alumni Association (UIAA Worldwide) paid him a courtesy visit at the company’s headquarters in Port Harcourt on Friday.
The UIAA delegation, led by its Acting President, Dr. Terrumun Hembaor Gajir, was in Port Harcourt to formally invite Attah to deliver the 2025 UI Alumni Guest Lecture scheduled for November at the Dame Edith Okowa Auditorium, Dr. Michael Omolayole Alumni Complex, UI, Ibadan.
Dr. Gajir explained that the annual lecture series, instituted in 1979, has grown into a respected national platform for shaping public policy, with past speakers including the late Chief Bola Ige, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, and Dr. Allen Onyema.
In a nostalgic moment, Attah, himself a renowned sportsman during his student days, fondly recalled the football rivalry that once electrified the UI campus. He reminisced about how Allen Onyema, now Chairman and CEO of Air Peace and also a past UI Alumni Guest Lecturer, was the linchpin of the university’s football team.
“To defeat the University of Ibadan team or Kuti Hall back then, all you needed was to either injure Allen Onyema or somehow take him off the field,” Attah said with a laugh. “As good as I thought I was, Allen was a real stumbling block for Independence Hall and every other hostel when it came to football.”
Turning from memories to mission, Attah reflected on his journey from UI’s Faculty of Technology to leading a major African energy company. He revealed that in his previous capacities, his organizations already supported infrastructure projects at both the University of Ibadan and the University of Port Harcourt, but stressed that his personal passion lies in building people rather than structures.
“I’m not a big fan of infrastructure,” he explained. “I believe more in human capital. When you build people, the infrastructures they can later build are enormous and unquantifiable. We are all products of opportunity, and the real privilege is to help others seize theirs.”
Attah illustrated his point with a story of a domestic servant who, by listening to his employer’s children’s lessons, gained an education, earned a university degree, and rose to senior management in an oil company. He also recounted the struggles of undergraduates who squatted in multiple halls of residence while working to fund their studies—examples, he said, of the transformative power of investing in people.
While expressing gratitude to God for his own career, Attah was quick to downplay personal accolades. “We are over 1,500 people in this company. If they rank the smartest, I might barely make the top 100. It’s a privilege to lead, and that’s why I want to give back by supporting human potential,” he said.
The UIAA visit ended with mutual commitments to explore scholarship endowments and other programmes that identify and uplift exceptional but disadvantaged students—a gesture Attah described as “the kind of space I would be very happy to play in.”