05:07 GMT 8th November 2011
However with lucrative positions becoming fewer every year, young Nigerians began to embrace the spirit of enterprise. Among them was Ifeanyi Ubah, the managing director of Capital Oil and Gas, one of Africa's most successful companies.
Armed with sharp business acumen, Ubah has grown a company to become a market leader in the country's downstream sector, outstripping long-established competitors - both multinationals and indigenous. Political economist Pat Utomi has describe his achievement as a 'remarkable feat'.
Ubah started Capital Oil during a period of severe uncertainty in the global economy, with many firms in the industry folding in the wake of the crisis. But the went from strength to strength.
Using the most modern technology, Capital Oil and Gas has been able to meet the expectations of its growing number of customers by providing excellent products and services. The company's deepwater craft and jetty is capable of docking four mother vessels simultaneously.
Capital Oil recently commissioned an ultramodern 28-arm loading gantry, with the capacity to load 55 million litres of petroleum products a day. A tank farm to handle 5,500 vehicles a day on a shift basis is the first of its kind in Nigeria, and retail filling stations, two of which are mega service outlets, are located in different parts of the country. The company is also in the process of developing a network of strategic reserves with a capacity of 18 million litres each.
Ubah has been profiled by the Oxford Brookes magazine as one of the top young Nigerian business leaders under the age of 40. He has received numerous awards and recognition beyond the shores of his home country for his outstanding work the hydrocarbons sector.
Just like many other entrepreneurs, he is also a philanthropist. The Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah Foundation, offers scholarships to less privileged children up to university level, and has provided potable water, electricity transformers to deprived communities.
Utomi, in a goodwill message to Ubah on his recent 40th birthday, emphasised the need for more entrepreneurs to emerge to stamp out poverty. 'Unless we can create one to two hundred people creating jobs at a rate similar to [Ubah], Nigeria is going to pay a high price, with looming anarchy from those denied opportunities, with sentence to poverty as a result,' he said.
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