On October 12, 2024 BENDEL Mirror reported that Rev David Ugolor has been elected United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) Coalition Board alongside Gillien Dell. Also elected are, Naomi Roht-Arriaza, and Wajdi Balloumi as Vice Chairs with Wana Alamsyah and Mukhtar Ahmad Ali as Treasurer and Secretary respectively, of the board which has as managing director, Mathias Huter.

According to the report, David Ugolor has been in the forefront in the fight against corruption as he believed that corruption impedes the enthronement of an egalitarian society and it is the root of cause of poverty, economic deprivation and other economic woes across the African continent.

As soon as the David Ugolor story broke the publisher of BENDEL Mirror and I agreed that he has made us proud granted that Nigeria and her citizens are in the black book of the world.

Given this, both Emmanuel Ikhenebome and I were really so excited by Rev David Ugolor's rising profile in Civil Society Organization (CSO) work.

Emmanuel Ikhenebome is now looking forward to a day he will sit at a table to interview the great Rev David Ugolor on invitation or even accompany him on his several trips out of town.

Meanwhile, to fill the interview gap waiting period, here is a features on the Rev David Ugolor's charted unrevealed story as a CSO indefatigable campaigner, consummate advocate and tireless activist all rolled into one coherent, successful bundle. Basically, my mandate is to show that Rev David Ugolor deserves his meritorious election to the exalted position as co- chair of UNCAC.

I have known Rev David Ugolor since the 1990s as a passionate man fighting earnestly for economic and environmental justice in Bendel, Edo, Nigeria, Africa and the world at large in this progressive, evolutionary scale.

His incursion into NGO work began in the early nineties with his one-man peaceful civil protests over the fragrant; corrupt abuse of Okomu forest, environment as well as the land rights of ethnic nationalities in the ecological zone of Ovia South-West Local Government Area of the old Bendeĺ State.

During this period, he carried out his campaign outside the platform of a NonGovernmental Organization (NGO). ln 1995, Rev David Ugolor founded the African Network For Environment And Economic Justice (ANEEJ) while he was a student at Edo State University (now Ambrose Alli University), Ekpoma in Edo State. In other words, ANEEJ is a record 29 years old today and for this period of time he has been ìts executive director.

In passing, it is salutary that Rev David Ugolor is an alumnus of Ambrose Alli University who has glorified its name as an NGO icon just as Rev Chris Oyakhilome and Festus Keyamo (SAN) have done in the areas of pastoral evangelism and legal practice.

Rev Chris Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy and Festus Keyamo (SAN) minister of aviation are both alumni of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma.

Also, it is important to point out that Rev David Ugolor is among the very few major players in civil society work who didn't join it out of sheer jobless desperate opportunism like most portfolio NGO businessmen and surrogate politicians dotting the scorched social landscape, today.

Rather, Rev David Ugolor entered civil society work to genuinely fight for justice in Africa for justice in the environment and economy. He was preparing to enter the university when he started civil society work as a young man in Iguobazuwa, headquarters of Ovia South- West Local Government Area of Edo State, Nigeria.

He continued the civil society work while in the university where he grew it into a potential tool to give Africa a continent free of corruption, poverty, hunger, environmental degradation and economic strangulation; as well as recreate an Africa run on the wheels of accountability, transparency and good governance.

So far, after 29 solid years in civil society work Rev David Ugolor has been able to make ANEEJ an international brand in NGO work known all over the five continents with Rev David Ugolor as the face of ANEEJ which headquarters is in Benin, capital of Edo State, Nigeria, while its Advocacy Office is in Abuja the new federal capital of Nigeria.

Rev David Ugolor's major anti-corruption advocacy really began at a global level in the nineties when he joined the Jubilee South South Forum of 35 countries across the globe to fight for the outright cancellation of the Third World countries' foreign debts owed to the West through corrupt engagements. Alas, the struggle for a debt-free millennium for Third World nations so as to release their potential for rapid economic development had begun in ernest.

Later, during Obasanjo's civilian administration he deployed his global experience in the Jubilee South South Forum to collaborate with over 60 civil society groups in Nigeria in the rigorous debate opposing and repudiating any repayment of Nigeria's foreign debt stock of 35 billion dollars amassed from corruption over the years and owed the West. This debt profile was acting as a big hindrance to the development of the country because as at 2003 the huge debt attracted an annual debt service payment of 4.19 million dollars.

Eventually; the nation got a reprieve. The Paris Club of Creditors allegedly owed 30 million dollars of the debt in 2006 agreed to reduce its debt share to 17 billion dollars out of which Nigeria was told to pay off only 12.119 billion thus getting a debt forgiveness of 5 billion dollars.

The message here is that Nigeria cannot tell its full story of the Paris Debt Forgiveness Deal without mentioning the role played by Rev David Ugolor and his special purpose vehicle ANEEJ.

It is instructive to state that while Rev David Ugolor was fighting to get foreign debt reprieve for Nigeria, he was simultaneously dialoguing with the German, Dr.Axel, the country representative of Heinrich Boell Foundation. His discussions with the German resulted in getting Heinrich Boell Foundation's support to carry out baseline study in 2003 to identify whether there is an oil resources curse or blessing in the Niger Delta region.

The finding? There is oil curse in the region due to massive corruption in the budgeting and implementation processes of state government.

This discovery was published in 2004 in a book titled OIL OF POVERTY IN NIGER DELTA.

To reverse the oil curse, Rev David Ugolor launched a pet monitoring project he called PUBLIC EYE ON OIL REVENUE IN NIGER DELTA project. Through it, Rev David Ugolor contributed significantly to the establishment of EDSOGPADEC in Edo State in May 2007 few weeks to leaving office by Governor Lucky Igbinedion. The law setting up this body has anti- corruption articles that enhance accountability and transparency in the proper management of oil revenues in Edo State so as to reverse the oil curse into development blessings.

Also, in pursuance of this goal, Rev David Ugolor helped to facilitate the enactment of Edo State Fiscal Law through a workshop he organized on November 30, 2009 and held Bishop Kelly Pastoral Centre in Benìn.

Similarly, Rev David Ugolor played a strategic role in ensure that the government of Delta State set up DESOPADEC to promote good governance of oil revenue in the state.

All said, in order to raise a strong and an enlarged collective platform to fight corrupt mismanagement of oil revenue in the Niger Delta region as NGO tradition dictates, Rev David Ugolor championed the formation of a group called Niger Delta Monitoring And Transparency Network.

A close check reveals that Rev David Ugolor has also helped to birth several other of such network in his civil society engagements. Some of them include:

■ Publish What You Pay Campaign Nigeria. It is a coalition of over 120 civil society organizations in Nigeria launched in Port Harcourt in 2004 with a mandate to advocate mandatory disclosure of extractive industries payment to oiĺ rich developing countries as well as mandatory disclosures of their receipts by governments.

Be informed that the Publish What You Pay Campaign Nigeria Network coordinated by Rev David Ugolor from ANEEJ international headquarters in Benin played a major role in collaborating with the federal government to build anti-corruption platforms that enhances transparency, accountability and good governance. For instance, the campaign's partnership with government led to the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act, Public Procurement Act and the Freedom of Information Act among others.

Moreover, the campaign helped to give please stop what you are doing and listen to this information for your own good Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative that aims to promote accountability in the oil; gas and solid mineral sectors.

■ Nigeria Network On Stolen Assets. Through this platform, Rev David Ugolor led its affiliate members to ensure that they participated in and monitored the recovery and public social expenditure of all stolen assets of the federal government starting with Abacha Loot running into billions of naira. Due to his success story in this aspect of civil society work, the EFCC appointed him as a member of a high-powered team set up to take stock of and recommended ways for the disposal of stolen assets recovered from corrupt public officials under the Buhari administration.

You can hardly find any burning public issue that Rev David Ugolor has not contributed his ANEEJ and network advocacy in resolving in a corruption-free sustainable way.

Take the cases of oil subsidy and local government autonomy in Nigeria. Rev David Ugolor and Leo Atakpu his deputy in 2011 through ANEEJ published a book titled FATALITY OF NIGERIAN SUBSIDY POLITICS. The book outlines the impunity and large-scaĺe corruption bedevilling the oil subsidy regime in Nigeria.

In this publication, also, Rev David Ugolor and Leo Atakpu recommend humane ways out of the oil subsidy conundrum.

You can see that Rev David Ugolor as a civil society worker is a futuristic, pro-active and independent development expert. Imagine, about 13 years ago he led ANEEJ to research into how to get out of the oil subsidy trap in a soft manner when the going was good. Nigeria was then not the world capital of poverty.

Today, the social, economic and political permutations of oil subsidy removal are totally different. The challenging risk factors of oil subsidy removal are not only agonisingly worrisome but fearsome since most Nigerians are suffering untold excruciating pains from the oil subsidy removal.

Rev David Ugolor has equally in a similar patriotic mode since 2006 carried out intense advocacy for local government full autonomy so as to stop the state governors from corruptly enriching themselves with the funds of local governments.

His position brought him into direct confrontation with the 36 state governors led by Governor Orji Kalu Orji now a senator in the national assembly. All the governors ensured the local governments were never granted independence. However, 18 years later they have been granted autonomy. It was late in coming. Had the local government autonomy been granted in 2006 over a trillion naira wouldn't have been stolen bý the governors.

Besides book publication, Rev David Ugolor also uses ANEEJ to publishes a newsletter. Since this piece is largely focused on how Rev David Ugolor came to be a brand, I will write about his newsletter of 9th August, 2009. This publication contains stories of how an audit report exposes an excess crude oil account fraud in NNPC as well as a government probe of N1.5 trillion scam between January 2009 to May 2009 - that is, within five months.

Finally, the newsletter interviewed vintage Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, who lamented that with the way Nigeria is going, it is heading towards a failed state!!
Just name it. Is it the radio, television or print media, Rev David Ugolor has granted interviews to all of them on countless times espousing the need to hold the ruling political class in Nigeria accountable for every kobo of public resources in their custody.

Some members of this exploitative class hated his corruption war against them and went on to use the police to frame him up for the murder of Mr Olaitan Oyerinde, an aide to Comrade Adams Aliu Oshiomhole, the governor of Edo State. It was the saddest experience in his lifetime to be associated with the rumour flying around that he killed his bosom friend for money! Terrible!

Incredible rumour of which Ziad K. Abdelnour says without apology: "Always remember... Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots."

So, his true friend never panicked. Alas, they were vindicated. Rev David Ugolor was freed of the allegation of murdering Olaitan Oyerinde. This episode did not dampened Rev David Ugolor's conscious determination to continue his NGO campaign, advocacy and activism against corruption in all of its ramifications to the joy of his global partners.

Much more, to give additional panache to his crusade, he trained in Sussex, United Kingdom as a full certified professional anti-corruption expert. Then, he went on to create a formidable ANTI-CORRUPTION Section in ANEEJ International Headquarters in Benin, capital of Edo State. Surely, this is progress in the war against the evil called corruption.

Mathew 7:6 says, "By their fruits, you shall know them."

UNCAC Coalition is aware Rev David Ugolor and ANEEJ are working round the clock to enthrone a new world order without corruption or it is reduced to the barest minimum. Hence, he was elected as co-chair of the global anti-corruption body recently.

Whom the cap fits, let them wear it, counsel the late reggae king BOB Marley.