Irene Chigbue; Director-General Of the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) who succeeded Dr. Julius Bala in March 2005. She was first involved with the Nigeria’s privatization programme between 1989 to 1991 when she was engaged as a legal officer with the then Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation (TCPC). With the transformation of the TCPC into BPE, Chigbue was on board first as Director (legal services) between 2000 and 2002, before becoming the director (Industry and Manufacturing) between 2002 and March 2003. Chigbue Irene then later served as the Director, Infrastructure and Networks between September 2003 and December 2004.
Irene was born on December 7, 1954 and attended the University of Nigeria (UNN), Nsukka where she graduated in 1977 with second class (Honours), Upper Division in Economics, before proceeding to Kings College, University of London, where she obtained an LLB and LLM between 1979 and 1983. She also holds a Diploma certificate in Business Administration from Harvard University.
Chigbue had earlier worked with the Federal Ministry of External Affairs between 1977 and 1978, where she served in the Department of European Affairs and later the Department of International Economic Co-oporation as External Affairs Officer. She also had a stint in the Chambers of Kehinde Sofola and Co, Lagos, before setting up the law firm, Chigbue and Chigbue and Co, which she managed for four years before joining TCPC.