It is self evident
from the interview which ex President Olusegun Obasanjo granted Premium Times,
one of Nigeria’s most investigative online newspapers, that all is
not well between
the elder statesman and the well known controversial contractor, Chief Emeka
Offor from Anambra State, who is described in the media as a financier of the
opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but should actually be appropriately
referred to as a major beneficiary of the party for the 16 years it was in
power from 1999. Offor benefitted in a humungous manner from all PDP
administrations, including Obasanjo’s which was in office for eight years
starting with the ascendancy of democratic rule in 1999. In the interview,
Obasanjo accused the successor
administrations of being in cahoots with Offor
whom he said made a mess of turn-around maintenance (TAM) contracts at both the
Warri Refinery & Petrochemicals Company (WRPC), which has an installed
capacity for refining 210,000 barrels of crude oil daily, and the Port Harcourt
Refinery and Petrochemicals Company (PHRC), which has a name plate capacity of
210,000 barrels per day. The erstwhile Nigerian leader wondered why a person
with such a record should extend his tentacles to even the electric power
sector.
Indeed, Offor is
now immersed in electricity business. And it started with the Obasanjo
administration! Therefore, the implied suggestion by the former president that
Offor’s involvement in the power sector began with either the Umaru Musa
Yar’Adua government or that of Dr Goodluck Jonathan is curious. In case the old
general has forgotten, it is good to remind him of the multibillion naira
transmission contract which Offor’s Chrome Energy got in 2000 from the defunct
National Electric Power Authority (NEPA). Chrome Energy was established the
same year, and its first contract was to upgrade the Yola—Bauchi transmission
line. The contract was awarded for about 18 billion naira, but the World Bank
which provided the loan protested that it was too high. It was consequently
reduced to N12b.
The Obasanjo
government went ahead to award Offor’s Chrome Energy Consulting the New
Haven—Ugwuaji substation contract in Enugu. It was for the princely sum of
N8.8b. How and when the job has been executed to this moment is another matter
altogether. It was the Obasanjo government which awarded Offor’s Nimek
Investments Ltd the contract for the channelization of the 20-km Awoye—Benin
River in Ondo State. The contract sum was N1.831billion and the duration was 30
weeks. Interestingly, while this contract from the Niger Delta Development
Commission (NDDC) had yet to be executed the Obasanjo government proceeded to
give Offor’s Chrome Dredgers N494m for the channelization of 11 kilometres of
the same river!
Under Obasanjo,
Offor’s Chrome Air Services was the official transporter of the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) for the movement of currency notes across the country. The
aviation firm ceased to play this role when the Federal Government decided to
phase out the British BAC-1 11 planes from the Nigerian airspace following the
crash in Kano State on May 4, 2002, of an Executive Air Services (EAS) plane
which had on board the Minister of Sports, Mark Ishaya Aku, and Julie Useni,
wife of the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lt Gen
Jeremiah Useni, who is now a senator on the platform of the opposition PDP.
Has Chief
Obasanjo forgotten that it was his government which offered Chief Offor the
chairmanship of the Nigeria Telecommunications company (NITEL), then about the
most prized board appointment in all federal organizations? For unstated
reasons, Offor declined to take the offer. The Obasanjo government then
reserved the post for any person nominated by Offor. Consequently, Dr Martin Igbokwe
, a medical doctor from Nnewi in Anambra State, who is now unfortunately late,
became the NITEL chairman. His tenure saw a sharp decline in the fortunes of
the parastatal, resulting in a massive campaign against his leadership. Dr
Igbokwe was thus replaced by Dr Felix Anaeze Chinwuba, a former Political
Science lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Dr Chinwuba is from Awka
in Anambra State. Drs Chinwuba and Igbokwe were Offor’s foot soldiers in the
horrible politics of Anambra State of the Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju days.
Could ex
President Obasanjo have forgotten that it was its government which helped Chief
Offor to acquire Orient Bank plc and christened it Afex Bank? For three years
subsequently, Afex Bank was distressed. With Offor as chairman, the bank
finally went under. It was one of the 13 banks which could not meet the bank
recapitalization deadline of December 31, 2005. There were widespread
accusations of insider dealings at the highest levels. There were reports that
as much as N15b was used illegally to finance operations of the Environmental
Remediation Holding Corporation (ERHC), Offor’s firm in oil production in the
Joint Development Zone (JDZ) between Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe.
And talking of
the JDZ, was it not Obasanjo’s government that promoted Offor’s ERHC to corner
four oil blocs in the zone at below the market rates, even though the company
had by then only one employee? The deals caused so much controversy in the
global oil industry, with the President of the island nation, Fredrique de
Menesez, the World Bank, major international oil majors like ChevronTexaco and
ExxonMobil as well as the international media crying blue murder. In a case of
poetic justice, Offor’s ERHC struck dry wells in all four blocks in Sao Tome
and Principe. Unknown to most Nigerians, this development almost brought Offor
to his financial knees two years ago. He was rescued by ex President Goodluck
Jonathan and ex Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo through some deals in the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the National Integrated
Power Project (NIPP).
One has gone to
this extent to demonstrate that the suggestion by erstwhile President Obasanjo
that his government did not throw government largesse to Emeka Offor is misleading.
Obasanjo not only awarded him mouth-watering contracts on sweetheart terms, but
also provided him with a larger contingent of policemen than any state governor
in Nigeria’s history. It was a major topic in the media throughout Obasanjo’s
tenure. Obasanjo’s denial of his role in making Chief Offor does suggest firmly
that their relationship must have gone very bad. Or it may be because the fear
of our new president, General Muhammadu Buhari, is the beginning of wisdom
among the Nigerian political class. These are interesting times in Nigeria.
Dr Okafor is an
engineer in Abuja.