Building Bridges: What Real Empowerment Looks Like

Reflections from the 2026 Nigerian Woman in Oil and Gas Conference

Two days. One powerful theme. Hundreds of women — and the men who champion them — gathered at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, on the 3rd and 4th of March 2026 for the annual Nigerian Woman in Oil and Gas Conference, sponsored by NCDMB.

The theme this year was Building Bridges: Empowering Women for a Sustainable Energy Future.

It was the right theme. But I want to push on it a little.

Because here’s what I’ve learned after nearly three decades in upstream oil and gas: bridges are never built from the middle. Someone has to start from their side. Someone has to anchor the foundation before the other end can even be imagined. And for too long, in this industry, women have been waiting in the middle — qualified, capable, ready — while the structural anchors on the other side remain unmoved.

So what does it really mean to build bridges in energy?

It means honest conversations about access, not just aspiration.

We celebrate when a woman breaks into a boardroom or leads a field operation. And we should. But celebration without interrogation is incomplete. The more important question is: what system kept her out in the first place — and has that system changed? Empowerment that doesn’t dismantle barriers is just motivation with better packaging.

It means redefining what “sustainable” looks like.

The energy transition discourse is dominated by technology, capital, and policy. Rarely do we centre the question of who leads the transition. Yet the evidence is unambiguous — diverse leadership produces better decisions, more resilient organisations, and more equitable outcomes. A sustainable energy future that is not also an inclusive one is a future built on a cracked foundation.

It means investing in pipelines, not just platforms.

Conferences like this one matter. Visibility matters. But if we’re serious about building bridges, the work happens after the conference ends — in mentorship rooms, in procurement decisions, in the contracts awarded to women-led businesses, in the promotions that don’t require a woman to work twice as hard for half the recognition.

And then the conference did something that moved me deeply.

A formal mentorship program was launched — structured, intentional, and specifically designed to walk young women in STEM from where they are to where they’re capable of going. I had signed up to be a mentor. And on those two days, it became real: I was formally assigned my mentee.

Her name is Zee.

I don’t take that lightly. A young woman in STEM — with her whole career ahead of her, navigating an industry that will not always make room for her easily — has been entrusted to my guidance. That is not a title. That is a responsibility. And I am genuinely, deeply honoured to begin this journey with her.

Because this is what bridge-building actually looks like. Not the ribbon-cutting moment. Not the applause in the conference hall. It’s the quiet, consistent, one-on-one work of one woman saying to another: I see you. I’ve walked some of this road. And I will not let you walk your stretch of it alone.

I sat in that hall and felt the weight of what this community carries — and the extraordinary energy it generates. Women who have navigated swamp, offshore and deepwater locations and boardrooms, who have written technical proposals at midnight and delivered keynotes by morning, who have held their ground in negotiations and held space for the women coming up behind them.

NCDMB’s continued sponsorship of this platform is not a small thing. It signals institutional commitment. But institutional commitment must translate into institutional action — in policy, in procurement, in leadership pipelines, in the metrics we hold ourselves accountable to year after year.

As the theme challenged us: this is about the future of energy. And the future of energy cannot afford to leave half its talent on the wrong side of a bridge that was never finished.

The question I’m sitting with — and I invite you to sit with it too — is this:

What bridge are you building? And have you actually broken ground on your side?

To every woman who was in that room and online: you are the evidence that this industry is changing. Keep going.

And to Zee — welcome. This is going to be a remarkable journey.

I was honoured to be part of the community of women and allies at this year’s conference. If you were there, what stayed with you? Drop it in the comments — let’s keep the conversation going.

Written By:
Ifeoma Ukabiala 
Vice President Upstream
Women in Energy Network 

Tags: #NCDMB #WIEN #WomenInOilAndGas #BreakingBarriers #Mentorship #STEMLeadership #ShapingTheFuture #EnergyLeadership #WomenInEnergy #NWIOG #EnergyTransition #WomenInSTEM #NigerianEnergySector #Leadership #BuildingBridges