Legislative Sanctification of SubterfugeBy Prof. Augustine C Odinma
I read the Osita Chidoka’s article first on the Gamji.Com website. I had already exchanged four email messages before the Sunday ThisDay, of June 26, 2005 carried the misleading article again. It is amazing how people can demean legislators and the legislative process, particularly by some one whose intention was to mislead. A legislative process has become a ‘Sanctification of Subterfuge?' This act of subterfuge perpetuated by the writer and his clients can never be tolerated any where in the world, not even US legislators. I believe that the legislators are educated men and women, more so, elected by their constituencies and I think it is utter arrogance and disrespect for the society at large to describe them and the legislative process in the manner the article did. Well, I leave the legislators to fight their own battle.
Now lets talk about the author and his comments about the report. Mr Chidoka in his article gave the impression of an independent person with full information about what he set out to write about. I was almost fooled! I felt that he had limited information about the process that led to the report I submitted to the House Committee on Communications and as a result I sent him email to that effect, but when he replied I saw a person who has entrenched interest in the matter, but who chose to misled the readers. This would be obvious when you read the email we exchanged. I will only attach two of the email messages due of space constraints. In Nigeria some people can misleadingly call ‘white to be black’ and indeed they can get away with it. Mr Chidoka now lives in the US and he is yet to learn that you cannot misrepresent information, including changing information about someone to intentionally destroy and get away with it.
First and foremost, who is this Mr Chidoka and what is his extent of knowledge in telecommunications or ICT? When I realised that he was acting, I decided to use my own sources in the US to check him out and I found as follows:
Given this profile of a man talking about what he knows little about, it seemed unreasonable for me to talk about the article attributed to him and that was why I decided not to respond to it before it was sent to ThisDay. But, for the benefit of your readers I will outline some of the points that would be necessary to clarify other falsehood in the article.
Mr Chidoka intentionally tried to deceive your readers by stating that: “The search for the report on the Internet was not successful so I requested a friend in Nigeria to mail a copy to me”. Who was this so-called friend! When you read his email to me that you will find toward the end of this article you will see that Mr Chidoka was sent the confidential hardcopy the President sent to Mr El-Rufai and the Ministry of Communications Minister. This is in Mr Chidoka’s email to me! I was filled with disgust and distrust for the system to note that such confidential note in the president’s handwritten would be found in the hands of a student whose primary mission was to attack me ferociously in order to destroy a report. Mr Chidoka pretended to be an independent “gatekeeper” living in Washington D.C. in order to create the impression that people are now questioning the report, but I leave you to read his email message to me and draw your conclusions.
I gave a definition in the report about the words: telecom operator, telecom innovator, and telecom consultants. The primary purpose of the definition was to show that these words were wrongly used or applied in the advert and in the choice of a consultant such as Pentascope to manage a large entity as NITEL. The definition is common knowledge among doyens in the telecom field. In a bid to destroy the report for his personal reasons, Mr Chidoka attacked the definition and said I did not use references. Wow! It was at this point I realised that the writer of the article must be an immature student learning the methods of research writing. This turned out to be true. He does not know the difference between academic writing and business report writing. It is disappointing that such a graduate student who has neither an experience in telecom nor training in the field can talk so eloquently about what he knew little about. Well, most Nigerian can talk about any situation or field as though they are experts and Mr Chidoka has proven this in his article. I think that when we are done, this is going to be a lesson to Chidoka and some others like him. If his express intention was to help Mallam El-Rufai, then he has failed! They are only succeeding in getting me to open up! I cannot be deterred by threat or blackmail.
It may interest your readers to know that, I read in the papers on June 24, 2005, that the new Consultants (BNP Paribas) to the BPE recommended that the pre-qualifications criteria in the Advert made last year for the expression of interest should be updated and as a result additional explicit information was sent out. I said the Advert was ambiguous in 2002 and I also said so in the Report to the House Committee on Communications. If you do not have a copy of the new pre-qualification criteria, I can send it to you via email. Contrast it with the views I expressed in the report. The only difference you will find is the fact that I do not believe in consortium to purchase the likes of NITEL. So, you can see that I am already exonerated in that respect. It is not a personal thing; it is about knowing what to do and how to do it.
This young man attacked and gave a misrepresentation of my tenure at Benedict, in a bid to destroy my person without proper investigation. Well I am seeking advice on how to stop such self centred pretentious individuals that we have in our system. There are things you could do in Nigeria and get away with it and not when you leave in the UK or US. First and foremost, I do not need to be a professor to consult for the House Committee on Communications. All I needed was my experience in the Telecom field as an expert. He intentionally evaded what I did before and after Benedict because he was seeking for a loophole and shamefully proceeded to describe an associate professorship. I am sure most acknowledge Nigerians living in the US would mock at him when they read his critique. Not that the issue of professorship matter, but you are looking at a man who was invited in 2002 to be a visiting Professor at the foremost Multimedia Institution in the world, Brunel University and I turned it down because of my busy schedule. Discussion has been on going in Nigeria since December 2004 for me to assume such feat and I have accepted.
Mr Chidoka in order to create erroneous impression and conceal his real intentions said: “He (Consultant) finds the NITEL Board under Mr. Vincent Maduka guilty for a colossal failure …” In fact, I exonerated Mr Maduka. Mr Chidoka has become so blind folded in his ardent desire to perpetrate deception. I do not see how he could be this misleading. First, I thought he made mistakes because he did not have my report, but after his first and second email I realised that he was intentionally acting out of personal interest. Mr Chidoka also tried to redefine forgery, but he should realise that I spoke with KPN. This young man would definitely call white black. The KPN legal officer said to me over the phone that it was forged! Mr Chidoka in his article said as was also passed to him that I have a personal vendetta against El-Rufai, this is not true and I will address this later. The following headings would clarify some other falsehood contained in the article and elsewhere.
Did I ever discuss any Position with El-Rufai? No! The Mallam El-Rufai alleged that I harbour malice against him and as a result I took the job to undo him. I had no grudge against him before I took the House Communications Committee job and had no reason to be. In 2001, 2002 and 2003, the income tax I paid each year to the UK government was between $40,000.00 and $50,000.00. This is verifiable. For one who paid over $40,000.00 in Income Tax in a year in 2002 for example, is that the profile of a man who would keep malice for a job position in Nigeria? I am one of the best in my field and I am not short of jobs. I do not know what the income of the NCC or NITEL CEO was in 2001 or 2002, but it is certainly not what some one earning in the six figures Dollars each year (in 2001 or 2002) would die for or hold malice with any one about. The fact is that I never ever discussed any position with Mallam El-Rufai. My only discussion with him was that I am prepared to support the BPE for minor consulting services for free. I said this in many of the papers I published in Nigeria. See the last paragraphs of ThisDay, August 22, 2002; Guardian, August 12, 2005; and BusinessDay, August 5, 2002. It also appeared in Vanguard and other papers.
Did I send my Report to the President as Alleged by Mallam El-Rufai? No! Mallam El-Rufai said I sent my report to the president, with a hand written note in order to reap treacherously. He lied against me. I certainly gave my report to few valued friends I consulted before I agreed to take the House Job with a 3 or 4 lines of my impressions. I had no control over what they did with it, but from the hand written note, Mallam EL-Rufai certainly knows that I did not send it to the President. The truth is that if I sent the report to the President, my note would have been different. If I knew that the report would be given to the President, I would have made my note more official and more revealing. Again this is cheap blackmail.
How did I get the House Consultancy Job? I am a member of the Nigeria IT Think Thank (NITTT). This is a group of IT and Telecom professionals in Nigeria and Diaspora. In NITTT we discuss ICT issues and critique its application to Nigeria. It was one of the members that the Chairman of the House Committee approached for a telecom expert to support the House initiative. To be precise, Hon. Arokodare spoke with Mr Folayan, CEO of Skannet, who is also a member of NITTT. I was reluctant when I was approached and sought advice from many people both in and outside NITTT. Among others, I spoke with Engineer Titi Omo-Ettu, CEO, THE EXECUTIVE CYBERSCHUUL and Mr Chris Uwaje, CEO of Connect Technologies and every one said that I would be contributing my quota to the nation, if I accepted the job. Consultation on whether or not I should accept the job took several weeks and when I took the job my thinking was that I was helping Nigeria. So, I did not take the job to undo Mallam El-Rufai as he would want people believe.
When did I meet El-Rufai and How? He said we met in London in 2001. That was not true. In my company, Lucent Technologies has industry watchers and I was moved in April of 2002 by the comments my colleagues, experts in the field were making regarding on-going privatisation in Nigeria. I then wrote five letters (of the same content) on April 26, 2002 to Mr. President, the Minister of Communications, DG of BPE, Senate Committee Chairman on Communications and House Committee Chairman. The letters were sent by DHL and it was primarily to introduce my self and to say that I could help with the process as an expert in the field. Few days later I called Nigeria and I told an old friend about what I had done and he told me that Mallam El-Rufai was in Massachusetts for a short course. I called him and told him that I sent a letter to him few days ago and we agreed that I should email the letter to him. This discussion lasted for less than 2 minutes. He replied my email and we spoke again for less than 2 minutes. He told me that he would be returning 26th of May and that he would see me in London for discussions. He did not come to London and I did not see him again until someone told me that he was in Nigeria. It was two months later that I heard he was in London for a Conference. I met him and asked him why he did not stop by and he said that his boss wanted him urgently. This did not last 2 minutes because people were waiting for him. That was the only contact I ever had with him. We never discussed positions. If Mallam El-Rufai can look me in the eye and say I asked him for a position, then we can settle it with ease. We should go for polygraph.
Did I recommend to the House to sanction Mallam El-Rufai? No!Mallam El-Rufai said that I recommended the sanction that was handed to him. He read my report and he knows that was a lie. The House, I believe is made up of about 360 men and women, most of whom are university graduates. Is it not absurd to portray them as people who do not have a mind of their own? For goodness sake, the members of the House of Representative are not stupid. Most of them are men and women of honour. They followed the whole process and provided to me most of the documents I used in my investigation. Most of them read the memoranda, and were present at the public inquiry and also followed the process passionately. I wrote my report and the House wrote theirs as well. Let the Mallam talk about the contents of the report and the forged document Pentascope used in securing the job!
My position about Working in NigeriaI want to make it clear that as an acknowledged expert in the field of telecom, if I am seeking or decides to take employment in the UK or US it will always be in the six figures Dollars. You have seen that as far back as 2002, I paid Income Tax of more than $40,000.00 to UK government that year. So, if I decide to seek or take employment in Nigeria, it would certainly not be for the money, but for the love and desire to serve Nigeria. And perhaps for me to support an initiative that would lead to a telecom policy that will stand the test of time. We must remember that Telecommunications is one of the dominant business drivers in the world and would continue to play this role for many decades to come. Nitel is also our national treasure. What we do today is what will determine what happens 20 years down the road. But, I can assure you that if we keep distressing NITEL, posterity will judge us harshly. The sale of NITEL is a major telecom policy issue, but it should be worrying that no indigenous staff with substantial telecom knowledge, such as from NITEL was part of the BPE planning stage. We can’t and should not throw NITEL and NEPA to foreign experts without the involvement of indigenous technology experts. A non-Nigerian expert cannot necessarily be patriotic.
What were my Motives?I have written more that twenty papers on Nigerian telecommunications and I have a reason for my efforts. As a Nigerian the least I can do is to write and hope that the planners are reading. That way I would be helping with my expert knowledge to shape the nation’s telecom policy. For instance, the first time I was invited to speak in Nigeria was at NICOMM in 2002, by Engineer Titi Omo-Ettu, Chairman of the Conference Planning for NICOMM 2002. I spoke on “Circuit to Packet Technologies” on that occasion. Today, the operators are still implementing what I suggested in that conference. I have had a lot of people sent email to me saying that all my predictions have come through. These days, Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu still invites me regularly to Nigeria to give lectures to the young telecommunications engineers he is re-training in his Institute at CYBERSCHUUL and I am glad to be contributing in this way. Last year, I presented three papers on telecommunications to Nigerian Society of Engineers, Electrical Division. Please ask the leadership of the Society if the papers have any thing to do with Mallam El-Rufai. The Mallam would have you believe that the papers I wrote on Nigerian Telecommunications were against him. I will encourage you all to get my papers and read them. I repeat my interest here is to have a telecommunications policy that will be robust and forward looking.
Do I have any Malice against Mallam El-Rufai? No! I never had any malice against Mallam El-Rufai. I have no reason to be. I have never been desperate for a job because I could never have had it better. In my lifetime, I have been where every telecom experts would aspire to be: AT&T, Bell Labs and Lucent Technologies, coupled with many request for visiting professorship positions. And I have always excelled. I get called up for jobs in US and in the UK, even up until last two weeks. Why should I be angry with Mallam El-Rufai, assuming it was true that I requested him to help me with a job? Every one knows how Mallam El-Rufai is quick to react and if it were true that since 2001 or 2002 I have been after him, would you not be surprised if he did not go public with it?
My impression after the Consultancy JobUntil I became the Consultant to the House Committee on Communications, my impression of Mallam El-Rufai was “here is a young man who gets into trouble because he could not control his tongue either because of immaturity or ignorance”. But my findings were shocking and dumb founded me. If you look at the contract document you will find things that will make one shed tears. If this is how people in responsibility conduct themselves then this nation is in trouble. I had the opportunity to see every letter, memoranda and listen to all presentations by stakeholders. The government may choose to get a second opinion about the report from an independent source. They will find out that I was very lenient in my report.
We have heard of many calls from the Government demanding that our experts in Diaspora should return home. I can tell you that if this is how things work here, you are not going to get people rushing back. What has malice got to do with the House Report, if at all there was one? Let the Mallam talk about the content of the report. I am sure that if he will agree to do the polygraph with me, people of this country will know the truth. I am also prepared to debate the content of the report any time, any where with the Mallam.
Conclusion I want to make it clear that
It is important to note that I am a professional who did a professional job. When a consultant submits his report to his client, the client has the option to dump it, use some or all of its content. The House in their judgement used some of my report. It is therefore strange that rather than talk with the House leadership, lies are perpetrated against my person. I have to some extent been exonerated by the new pre-qualification criteria suggested by BNP Paribas, the BPE lead consultant. My report was professionally and conscientiously carried out. It is not a personal thing; it is about knowing what to do and how to do it. It may be pertinent to say to any one thinking that I took the Consultancy job to make money, that I have only been compensated for some of my expenses. This job was purely done on the grounds of patriotism! I want to say that this discussion we are holding now was because I could not be compromised. Think about that!
Note: I am a very busy person, but if you have any real reason to reach me please feel free to do so. You can obtain my email address from the webmaster.
|