OBASANJO AND HIS BUSINESS DEALS

jideayobolu@yahoo.co.uk

President Olusegun Obasanjo believed to own 15 per cent stocks of Transcorp, according to recent media reports, confiscated an oil block (OPL 28) bid for and won by Binergy Limited in March this year, and allocated it to Transcorp. It is the second time a private Nigerian firm is losing its bid to Transcorp in similar circumstances. It would be recalled that Capital Leisures Limited whose chairman is AVM Moukhtar Mohammed, a former military governor of Kaduna State, had bid for and won Nicon Hilton Hotel, Abuja, but it was Transcorp, which did not even bid for the five star hotel, that took over Nicon Hilton after paying in the name of Capital Leisure, and no relationship exists between both companies or their owners. In the case of Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL) 281, Binergy Limited whose chairman is a top business man, Chief Adigu paid more than $35million or 50 per cent of the signature bonus put at $75million immediately after it won the bid in March. The six mouths officially given the company to pay the balance is yet to elapse. But president Obasanjo has since revoked the allocation after it was discovered that the oil block was more prolific than was initially thought. The seismic data showed that OPL 281 has at least 30 trillion cubic metres of gas. And, the company that won the bid originally has been trying to get back its deposit of $35million, but these attempts have been futile. Similarly, the rules were adjudged and the goal post shifted for Transcorp to buy NITEL at a give away price. The president has about 600million shares in the amorphous organization, yet the constitution forbids public servants from owning businesses.

Nigerians are outraged that our collective patrimony is been systematically taken over by those in power through very dubious methods. This government more than any other one has presided over the looting of the national economy. Yet, it makes so much noise about the anti-corruption exercise. No wonder therefore that corruption in Nigeria has assumed a larger than life image, it has been elevated to the level of the official policy of the state, in the country today, governance is a disappearing phenomenon, it is every man to himself God for us all. The truth of the Nigerian situation is that nobody is really fighting corruption; it is the rapacious tendencies of our so-called leaders that have brought the country to her kneel.

This is a country of anything is possible, there are no values, no standards, people just do what they like, the way it suits them. Never in the history of this country has the leadership at the highest level take the Nigerian people for granted, and feed them with all sorts of lies and audacious mendacity. If adequate care is not taken to checkmate this restless run of locusts on public utilities in country, by the time this government is kicked out power, they would have completely taken over all the juicy part of our public corporations.

Is it not ironic that the 1999 constitution states that, the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government, the supreme laws of the land also stipulates that the economy will be controlled in such a manner as to ensure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality of status and opportunity, it also explained that the state shall harness the resources of the nation and promote national prosperity and an efficient, a dynamic and self-reliant economy, it equally reasoned that the state shall direct the policy of the state in the promotion of a planned and balanced economic development, , the constitution also insisted that the material resources of the nation are harnessed and distributed as best as possible to serve the common good, it also opined that the economy system is not operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group and it explicitly stated that suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food, reasonable national minimum living wage, old age care and pensions and unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled are provided for all citizens. This government has not done any of these; instead they have carried out personal agenda and sold the whole country to themselves. What kind of a country is this? And, this so-called Transcorp, however, is yet to produce a single product or service in its entire existence. May God deliver us from these ravaging scavengers.

BY Jide Ayobolu

No 19 Gongola Street

Garki 2

Abuja-Nigeria.