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.
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| *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?
