Transobasanjo Corporation

 

Last week, ThisDay joined Leadership in pushing the multiple standard of the Nigerian president, as far as his venal interest in Transnational Corporation (a.k.a. Transcorp) is concerned to the front burner. Apart from a few columnists, no media house in Nigeria was ready to openly editorialise on the crooked relationship between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Transcorp. It was difficult to know why, maybe, it is for fear of being arraigned for sedition, and an overzealous judge refusing bail. But last week, ThisDay took the bold step.

 

On Wednesday, August 10, the newspaper declared on its front page that the president owns 200million shares of Transcorp, through his Obasanjo Holdings Ltd. The shares, it said, are held in a blind trust. I don’t know what the influential newspaper was talking about ‘a blind trust’, but whether blind trust or deaf trust, the truth is Obasanjo, the grand patron of anti-corruption in the world owns substantial stocks in Transcorp. But again, the newspaper erred in the figures. The president actually and in reality owns 600million shares of N6 each. And this itself is about 15% ownership of Transcorp. Not only that, the president is a co-promoter of the company, and several of the board meetings have been held at Aso Rock. No wonder some people now pejoratively refer to the organisation as the Aso Rock Company. As a substantial part owner of the company that has not produced one single product or any type of service anywhere in the world, the president has given away (at give-away-prices) NITEL, the Abuja Hilton Hotel and two oil blocks to the company. They are also waiting to pick up the Port Harcourt Refinery and the federal government-owned clearing and forwarding agency. At about the same time the president was offered the shares, Vice President Atiku Abubakar was also offered 100million shares but he smartly turned it down. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was also offered 100million shares, which she also quickly rejected. But many top government officials currently serving in this government accepted and paid for their Transcorp shares in full.

 

This class of abuse of office has never been known in Nigeria’s history. It is a fraud, which gives even the harshest critics of Obasanjo the shingles. Power has entered Obasanjo’s head so much so that he has forgotten himself. The president is naked but he thinks he is the most gorgeously dressed king in the world. Even by the standards of corruption in Nigeria, what Obasanjo and his men are doing to the people of this nation is unprecedented. It is as if the president is a spell or some form of juju fired at him by his numerous powerful enemies. Nigerians are shocked and amazed. I have a friend who calls Obasanjo the chairman of corruption in Nigeria. Yes, it is this president who has presided delightfully over the sharing of N50million bribes to senators and Reps in order to sit-tight in power against the will of the people and the spirit of the constitution that brought him in; he presided over the most roguish elections in Nigeria’s history; he has been presiding over the inimitable excess crude account scandals; the serial misappropriation of appropriated budgets; the Presidential Library scam; the allocation of oil blocks to individuals as if the Nigerian oil fields are also owned by Obasanjo Holdings Ltd. The list is too long to contemplate exhausting them in this write-up.

 

For the kind of money Nigeria made in the last seven years, only mind-boggling corruption can explain why Nigerians got poorer within the corresponding period. The Transparency International (TI) in Nigeria awakened from its deep sleep last week to condemn Obasanjo’s ownership of a large chunk of the new company that has already been awarded NITEL and the Abuja Hilton Hotel. Where were they all along?

 

But perhaps, we should not be surprised about the president at all. What do you expect from a leader whose soul mates include Ibrahim Mantu, Chris Uba, Tony Anenih, Bode George, Festus Odimegwu, and many others like them? The president, it would appear chooses his friends deliberately!