Ex-hockey international and immediate past President of Nigeria Hockey Federation (NHF), Mr. Patrick Ukah, recently celebrated his 50th birthday in Lagos. The entrepreneur, who started off with N2500 in 1973, speaks with TAIWO ALIMI on his experience as a sportsman, entrepreneur and more recently, politician.
Beginning
I was born some 50 years ago on April 10, in Jos, so I can consider myself as one of the set of Nigerians called ‘The Jos Boys.’ I was born into the Ukah family in Okpanam in Udemili North LG of Delta State. Incidentally, my mum is also from the same local government. When the Civil War broke out, we went back to the village and somehow I found myself in Agbor with my mum’s older sister. So I grew up in Agbor and Auchi, schooled in Ife, Osun State and now I’m working in Lagos. I have some siblings (Tony, Chukwuma, Judith and Victor). I am married to Barrister Perp Ukah with three kids, Afoma, who is studying in the UK now, Funaya and Chukwumaziepele Patrick Ukah (Jnr). That is my simple and God-fearing Catholic family.
I am, of course, an ardent hockey player, a game I love very much but because of the speed I can’t play it again, which made me to switch to golf. I love my golf too and how I wish I made contact with it at a very early age. For me, golf is it and my whole life revolves around it but that does not mean that I still don’t get around doing things in the area of hockey.
Hockey
Hockey caused a turnaround in my life and I am most appreciative to hockey. Way back in 1973, I was in Auchi at the All Saints Primary School and I was watching the television when I saw my cousin, Kenneth Adigwu, who was taking part in the march past for the Bendel Sports Festival and I began to wonder what life would be after finishing schooling. I was quite moved because he also started playing in Auchi under a coach called Benedith Epese. That made me take to the game and I made contact with some coaches then; Ben Ogiri, Vincent Osunde, who were coaches I met at an early age when I was in primary school. Because I was determined, I quickly surpassed even my expectations. Hockey became one game that showed me that I could actually go beyond home just doing sports in the school and the neighbourhood because I was a good footballer, played cricket, did sprint and high jump. I was an all-rounder and I think my daughter is taking after me. Within a short time, I became an integral part of the school and junior hockey and in 1975 was called to the junior camp.
I think in 1979, the late Christian Okoh was the Bendel State hockey chief coach, and the list for the state hockey team to report to camp was released. I was not in it and I became quite upset. That was really when I started testing my faith in God. So, every morning after the usual prayer, I would go aside and pray to God and tell him I have to be in that camp. I am 50 now, so you can imagine in 1979 what was going through my mind. Miraculously as coach Okoh was going to resume camp, he came all the way from Benin, stopped at Auchi and told my mum’s older sister that I have been invited to the state camp and must go with him. So that was how the journey of Patrick Ukah started in big time hockey. Unfortunately, I was among the last set of players to be decamped but the experience of that camping really touched me and after that my life was never the same again. I later played in the Sports Festival for many states aside Bendel, like Oyo and Lagos states.
And it was like that till 1983, when I received my first national call up and that was in the National Stadium Lagos. I wore the national colours and, like they say, the rest is history.
I also played for many clubs, but the height of hockey club action was to play for Union Bank, which was like the model for hockey clubs then. I was working in the Nigerian Railways and played for the Union Bank hockey team. I was working in the audit department and was preparing to go to the university and would have qualified for study leave when Union Bank came, so I chose to resign my appointment with the Nigerian Railways because if I took the study leave I had to remain playing for them. So, in order not to lose that opportunity of playing for the Union Bank I submitted my letter of resignation. And from that year, 1983, Union Bank became the crack team and the team to beat. If you have not played for them you have not played hockey club in Nigeria. Union Bank used to travel all over the country to play big teams like Bauchi Flickers, Kano Flickers and El Kanemi Warriors to create awareness for hockey and many people would troop out to watch us and top Nigerians, like former governor Buba Marwa, Senator Buka Ibrahim and Senator Abdul Ningi, the current president of Nigeria Hockey Federation, were involved actively in the clubs. If you look at the growth of hockey that time you will be amazed. We travelled all over the country and hockey league was played on home-and-away basis. It was very popular.
What I am saying in relation to my life is that hockey exposed me and prepared me for my interest in politics. It kindled my interest at an early age because I saw Nigeria in diversity. At an early age, I had gone to the nooks and crannies of this country and that got me prepared for politics even as a young man and it was hockey. All the places I have travelled to in the world – Europe, America – hockey exposed me to them and I am better for it today because with my background I may probably not have been able to go to all these places.
Golf
I would say that what hockey started in my life golf completed it. Golf tells your life story on a daily basis. It is a game of life. And that your life story, it’s either you learn from it and rectify or it would continue to punish you. So you learn every day. It is not that golf is, however, taking me away from hockey but I say what makes one complete in life is what golf has come to top up.
Football
I am also an ardent football supporter. If you like, take Bendel Insurance to Division 2, it is the number one club in Nigeria. And no matter the heart ache Arsene Wenger is giving us, Arsenal is my club any day. But as a sportsman, I love Real Madrid and Barcelona any day. But when they are both playing I don’t like one team to intimidate the other. So if you win one, let the other win also. And that is why I like the fact that Real won the Champions League.
NHF President
As president of the Nigeria Hockey Federation, I was happy but not as fulfilled as I would have loved to be, because as president I must have done certain things that some quarters did not like; but it was simply for the good of the game and nothing else. And throughout my tenure, history can tell that I grew a pattern. I brought in International Energy Insurance (IEI) and for four years we had the IEI League and you can look forward to it year in year out. With the little we got, we ensured that we did the Savannah Conference, Atlantic Conference and the national final. Then we did the Top Four. We got the players engaged and kept the calendar a bit busy and all we needed to do was step it up. I have done my bit and I know Senator Ningi, my friend and brother, will equally do his best. My only regret is that we never had the opportunity to play the Olympic qualifiers.
Entrepreneur ability
I would say I am a good example of what an SME stands for in Nigeria. My experience everyday tells me that if the government can actually look at how the SMEs can survive in this country, we can solve the problem of employment. Not paying lip service. There are lots of companies like us who have suffered with good ideas, who have suffered because of lack of support and who have suffered because of the policies that are existing; the capitalist policies that are existing and that have not helped us to grow.
In 1994, my company was incorporated but I actually started pushing in 1993. I started by sharing office with two good friends – Demola Seriki and Tayo Akinkumi. Tayo used to have a company called Ventolite Ventures while I had Ventolite Sports Management Consultant. How did I arrive here? In the beginning, while in school, I desperately wanted to read law, so for so many years I did not get into the university because I did not meet the cut-off for law. Each year they would give me admission to study Physical and Health Education and I was turning it down. That was when I was working at the Nigerian Railways. I had some friends at the University of Ife and they were always telling me that I should sign up because God may just have a plan for me in that area, one of them is Segun Ogunnaike. So I ended up studying Physical and Health Education.
When I finished it, I went for my Masters (MBA) and I chose Marketing; a case study of Guinness. How do we go beyond CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and how can we add value to corporate organisations’ participation in sports? was my final thesis. That has been in my heart and it is a problem that those of us in sports administration and business have not been able to trigger the various big-spending companies in Nigeria. It is either we are not thinking or we have no value to give. So I started thinking how the involvement of these companies in sports sponsorship can increase their bottom-line. You see that what is going on in this country is corporate bodies spending based on CSR. For example, check out Coca Cola and the World Cup. Any venue of the World Cup will have Coca Cola sales and it is going to be exclusive. On the long run, let us check the sales of Coca Cola over a period of time in association with FIFA and compare it with the World Cup budget and also compare it with the top of the mind that would come with it. So Nigerian sports have not been able to do that and that is the thing that drove me towards that area. So I saw this vacuum and fashioned my ideas and company to filling it.
That further drove me to Lagos Business School where I did the Executive Programme and that changed my whole line of thinking. So what we do at Ventolite is marketing, using sports as a strategy.
I started Ventolite with N2500, my monthly salary at Ripples as a manager, and I was so determined that I would make a difference. I remember that time that I went to meet Segun Odegbami in the prospect of doing it together with him. He looked at me when I finished speaking and said, ‘Patrick, I am doing a similar thing; if I was not, I would join you.’ But he encouraged me. Ventolite has done a lot with Guinness, Promasidor, Primary Sports Festival, JSK, Cadbury, Ogbe Hard Court and others I cannot remember now. There was no time anybody brought one big money into Ventolite, we just came as an SME with ideas, struggling, using who you know, keep pushing and you are lucky when you have a job. But it’s been difficult expanding the business because raising fund for an SME is difficult in Nigeria. It could be better if government can help us more.
Look at a scenario where a bank has the authority to give up to a million naira (N1m) and you have to be able to pay in every 30 days interval. You find out that it is not easy because we are not selling tomatoes, where you can make your money on a daily basis. Some brands may not even pay you until 60 days.
Politics
Years back, Elder Solomon Ogba, the Delta State Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) told me to try and participate in the state’s politics and I just shrugged it off. But they say the time you wake up is your morning, I’ve woken up and I’m participating and will continue to participate to bringing change in my state. We need to pay more attention to the issue of governance. My kind of politics is like a philosophy and it is hinged on what the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, said: ‘Never be seen to be seating on the fence, be seen to be a participant.’ The problem we are having is because we don’t take active interest in governance, if we do, some of our bad leaders will not get away with what they do. Unrepentantly I’m a PDP member and my grassroots is my ward. I have run for election before; that is not foreclosed and when the time is ripe I will offer my services again. What is more important now is that in Delta State, let’s complete equity and fairness. I would be happy at 50 years plus to see a very credible person with integrity and love for Delta State, a peaceful man from Anioma extraction, become the next governor of Delta State. It is my wish and the birthday present I want and we are working towards it and it will happen. The other thing I would say is to appeal to my brothers from the Central and South that there is no contest about it; we have been able to produce our leader James Ibori from the Central, Governor Emmanuel Uduagha from the Central, can’t we see the solution of equity and fairness almost completed in an Anioma man being given the opportunity and after that anybody can be a governor of Delta State. It would be unfair for anybody to want to deny the Anioma people this opportunity. We are not saying we can do it alone. What we are saying is let’s be accommodated because we have also supported our brothers to rule Delta State. We have great brains that can do it too. For my own people, we should make sure we do not heat up the polity by thinking it is a do-or-die thing and let us pray to God that it will go in a most peaceful way.a
