Ogbona Youths Forum

What Makes Me Happy Always Is The Help I Render — Peter Dunia Peter Omoh Dunia is the Chairman of Oceanwave Group. He has made an exceptional commitment to humanitarian causes, especially the less privileged members of society like orphans, widows, and physically challenged people. An Edo-born technocrat, Dunia, popular as Peter Black among friends and associates, has recently been nominated for an award by Independent Newspapers as the Humanitarian Personality of the Year 2024, the investiture that will hold on Saturday, March 15, 2025 at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos. In this interview with PRINCESS OKAFI, he speaks about how he single-handedly built virtually all the roads with drainage in his Ogbona hometown, his amnesty grant fight and relationship with late President Musa Yar’Adua, President Goodluck Jonathan, Tompolo, among others. He also talks about how he has embarked on the building of one of the biggest skills acquisition ICT Centres in the country, apart from the police station, sports complex, and a two-thousand-capacity school auditorium he built. Excerpt: Can you briefly tell us about your background, mentor(s), friends, and perhaps significant social life of your choice, including music and food? Well, I am Peter Omoh Dunia, well known as Peter Black. I lived a very good part of my life in Delta State, but I am originally from Auchi in Edo State, Ogbona, to be precise. My growing up was quite interesting in the sense that you have to go through life and what it brings. It wasn’t easy, but I am grateful to God Almighty for bringing me this far to succeed. I love good music, the reason I manage a recording studio and a few artists, and yes, I love very good food. And I am a football fanatic; I am all for arsenal, and when you love something, you show it. The reason I single-handedly sponsored Warri wolves for two years was that everything was upon me throughout the period of time. Love without giving is not real, for God so loves the world that the phrase is there. Thank God for good friends too, of course you know 20 friends can’t stay together for 20 years, but you will always have the good, the bad and the ugly and they all teach you life experiences. You have made notable impacts with your resources either as an employer of labour or even in the area of human emancipation. What would you say motivates you to serve the downtrodden? My personal, then life has taught me a lot, growing up with hardship and perseverance, then the only thing that just makes me happy is to be able to help in any way I can. I don’t like lazy people. In as much as I see you want to do something and I can be of help, then I will. Even God said he will bless the works of our hands, so do something, don’t just be in a place and complain. Okay, tell us a little about your amnesty grant fight! Hmmmmmmm, the interviewer, please can we have a minute silence for the great man himself, the father of the Niger Delta, E K Clark, because the story can never ever be complete without him? He played a major role in the whole fight for amnesty. He has left a very big void for us all, but he fought a good fight, and he will always be remembered. Let me talk about OGBUEIFI as I usually call him, but popularly known as Tompolo. He is the main actor of the Niger Delta struggle. Without him, there won’t have been any amnesty. He was part of the struggle that led to amnesty. Tompolo is my very good friend, my brother from another mother, a man with so much enthusiasm, someone I can call a backbone anytime any-day. Tompolo is such a personality who doesn’t run away from struggle. He is the main slogan for struggle till it becomes a success. Tompolo is my powerful struggle leader. So it was the affair of the state that brought me to meet with late former President Yar’Adua and the former president Goodluck Jonathan, and I will not take the privilege for granted. So, meeting with the late president was for reassurance, and the rest is history. So far so good you know it has to be a lot of disagreement underneath, the sacrifices most people don’t get to see, but most importantly, the end result is success and that’s all we pray for, and I am grateful for that. You sometimes in 2009 tarred the entire roads in your community with asphalt and did drainage, built churches, a police station, a two thousand-capacity school auditorium, and a sports complex, and now you are building one of the biggest skill acquisition, ICT centres in the country, in collaboration with the youth of Ogbona. What actually informed your choices? Safety matters a lot, both in the house of God and also the community, I realise we didn’t have a very good police station, and we can’t be waiting on government to do things for us all the time, so I feel if you have the capability to do something, then no need to wait for the government, because the government is all of us, we all need to make it work. So it helps reduce crime and ill manner behaviour, and also help in sanitising the community. Then of course education plays a very good role in our lives, so for those who can’t afford their children school bills, I just had to come in to support, and encourage them to be literate, and for the sport complex, like I said I am a lover of sport, so I can go to any length to make sports engagement come alive, and you already know the world is going global. The main reason for the ICT center, and to encourage the youth to learn a skill, not just getting up