Obasanjo And His 25 Billionaires

By Remi Oyeyem

The brief exchange (as reported by the News Agency of Nigeria via PUNCH newspaper on October 30, 2016) between Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Mrs. Folorunso Alakija at the 2016 Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Forum last weekend was very instructive in so many ways. It was very instructive because it underscored the kind of mentality possessed by those who have had the chance(s) to govern Nigeria. Or it underscored the misfortune of Nigerians to have been governed by the kind of leaders they have had so far.

*Obasanjo: Celebrating his 25 billionaires? 

Mrs. Alakija, according to reports, had fired the first salvo accusing the Obasanjo administration that it “illegally took an oil block” allocated to her company after her family had “invested all” to “strike oil in commercial quantity.” Mrs. Alakija said the following in addition:

‘She said, “This oil block is in 5000 feet depth of water and was extremely difficult to explore. It took 15 years from the time that we were awarded the licence in 1993 till 2008 when we first struck the first oil.

“When this event happened, 60 per cent out of our 60 per cent equity in the business, was forcefully taken from us by the government of the day without due process.

We had to fight back by going to court to seek redress and it took another 12 years for justice to be served in our favour.”

Obasanjo in his response had reportedly explained that the “action of the government then was in line with the Mining Act which regulates oil prospection and exploration.” He insisted that it was “not fair” for Mrs. Alakija to claim that she was denied what was rightfully hers. Obasanjo –Onyejekwe added “I do not know you from Adam and there is no reason I would have denied you what rightfully belonged to you. So, you struggled, and you have struck oil. God bless your heart.”

Then Obasanjo dropped the bombshell:

“My delight is to be able to create Nigerian billionaire and I always say it that my aim, when I was in government was to create 50 Nigerian billionaires.

“Unfortunately I failed. I created only 25 and Madam, you are one of them.”

There is nothing unusual about Obasanjo’s failing to create 50 Nigerian billionaires as he intended. He has always failed Nigerians in every endeavour he has been involved. But the larger question remains the inability of our leaders to follow due process in exercising power. Our rulers often act as if they are kings of the jungle and that the laws of the land do not apply to them. They exude beastly instincts permeated with ruinous vendetta in manifesting congenital need to demonstrate crude power.

To Mrs. Alakija, until she was allotted oil wells, no one has really heard about her. She was never associated with any known business endeavour. She did not descend from any rich family or was previously married to a billionaire of credible means. She became a billionaire because she was allotted oil wells. She is emblematic of the mis-governance that has always characterized our clime. She got to be allotted oil wells in a system where nothing was ever fair and without due process. She only used her connections with our power aphrodisiacs euphemized as rulers, to get the oil wells.

Mrs. Alakija is a Yoruba woman. Like the retired General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma she got many oil wells because of her proximity to crude power in Nigeria. None of them is from Niger Delta. With the publicly available list of the owners of oil wells in Nigeria, the people of the Niger Delta have been evidently short changed. How many Niger Deltans became billionaire as a result of owning oil wells?

Nigeria: Tomorrow Is Dying!

By Ayodele Adio

Northern elders and the elite class have been quite vocal in the last couple of years, giving a louder voice to national issues, particularly that which affects their region. However, the sad reality is that they have focused on issues that  massage the ego of the elite class and deepen the pockets of a selected few turning a blind eye on the more threatening issues eating up the region.

President Buhari and VP Osinbajo

The dominant lexicon, Revenue allocation, as to who gets a better share from the national purse seems to take a sizable share of their mind thereby ignoring the bigger elephant in the room. If increase in allocation translates to better distribution of wealth across the social strata and an improved living standard of the average northerner, then they stand on holy ground but the evidence proves otherwise. The lack of regional purpose, poorly articulated vision, an incoherent strategy and a continuous mismanagement of resources is the cradle upon which the parlous situation of today’s north was bred.

The huge textile industries in Kano and Kaduna that employed thousands of young northerners gradually slid into extinction without any of our leaders attempting to thrown in a rescue rope. There is no doubt that the north is home to the richest man in Africa and a couple of other billionaires, what  logical explanation could one then give to the widespread poverty of the larger populace rather than the earlier assertion on the north’s focus on building strong individuals at the expense of stronger communities.

 It is this widening gap between the rich and poor that has gradually metamorphosed to the insecurity we are experiencing today. How could we not have known that economic repression breeds strife and contempt. The north is today making the headline for all the wrong things. The challenges in the north and its opportunities  are tied to a single yet critical word, Education. It is the level of awareness of a people, their skills and cerebral sophistication that determine the kind of community they build. There is a strong relationship between education and economic prosperity. When Egypt became the centre for global education, she consequently became an economic world power.

This trend extended to Greece, Rome, Britain and today the United States where seven of the top ten universities in the world are resident. The north accounts for the highest rate of illiteracy in the country, way below the national average and worst ratios  for girl child education in the country. The national demographic and health survey puts the illiteracy rate for women at 21% in the north west compare to a national rate of 50%, the 10 states with the highest number of girls out of secondary school are also found in the north.