Owei Lakemfa
27 August 2008
opinion
PROFESSOR Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke, the Director General of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) was last Wednesday detained by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The on-going investigation on her is in connection with her leadership of a group that is suspected of trying to fleece Nigerians in the name of American Democratic Party Presidential Candidate, Barrack Obama.
The group had set a fund raising dinner on August 11 in Lagos for N2 million per table and had allegedly raised over N100 million before EFCC officials stepped in. The Obama campaign organization had already disowned the group. As far as the embarrassed Obama team is concerned, the fund raising in Nigeria might be a surreptitious attempt to discredit Obama or limit his chances in the race.
It is baffling that Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke could embark on fund raising for Obama when as a former resident of the US, she knows that American laws forbid foreign funds in whatever guise in its presidential elections.
Indeed, all democratic countries I know have laws forbidding foreign funds from being injected into their political blood stream. Even with all our years in the wilderness of military dictatorship and corruption, our laws forbid it.
Section 225(3) states that: "No political party shall hold or possess any funds or other assets outside Nigeria; or be entitled to retain any funds or assets remitted or sent to it from outside Nigeria".
The motive of the Okereke-Onyiuke - led "Africa for Obama" group remains hazy as it changes its story about the funds. For instance, she now denies it was a fund raising event. She claims that the group's intention was to use the funds for advertisements asking Nigerians to persuade relatives in the US to vote for Obama.
This is clearly illogical. Who should educate the other on Obama; the eligible voters in the US or Nigerians who are so far from that country? Who should persuade the other on Obama; Nigerians in America who live under the harsh reality of the Bush rule in US or Nigerians who are trying to make ends meet in their country?
If the "Africa for Obama" group now says that the dinner was not a fund raising event, it means that the group is engaged in "419" activities. That is, obtaining money under false pretences.
Dragging 'Corporate Nigeria', including the Stock Exchange into cheap partisan politics is not new.
'Corporate Nigeria' led by Okereke-Onyiuke had been mortgaged in 2003 when shareholders funds were taken without authority and invested in the Olusegun Obasanjo presidential campaigns.
Similar investments were made to fund the unconstitutional and dictatorial bid to re-impose Obasanjo on the country in his "third term" bid.
Mrs. Okereke - Onyiuke also led another assault on shareholders funds when "Corporate Nigeria" raised some N7 billion for Obasanjo's library project. But who could protect such waste of shareholders funds when the chief regulator of the Stock Exchange is the High Priest of this religion of profligacy?
Perhaps one of the most embarrassing moves of 'Corporate Nigeria' under the Stock Exchange Director General was the establishment of an Obasanjo - sponsored company called TRANSCORP.
The company seized the Hilton Hotel in Abuja after which it "purchased" NITEL, the country's telecommunication backbone in a manner that remains controversial two years after the deal was done. Mrs. Okereke - Onyiuke announced that TRANSCORP paid $750 million for 75 per cent of NITEL shares. It turned out to be false.
The company never raised such funds and it "purchased" not 75 per cent but 51 per cent of NITEL. At least two more scandals sprouted out of that transaction. One is, who actually owned the funds allegedly paid for the NITEL shares?
Thesecond is the monumental incompetence dis-played by a company supposedly owned by "Corporate Nigeria". The 400,000 NITEL lines have under TRANSCORP, dwindled to less than 39,000 lines.
Its mobile arm which was trying to compete with other GSM companies has under TRANSCORP, vanished. The staff on the average are owed half a year salary. To compound matters, TRANSCORP bas been involved in asset-stripping of NITEL; selling off its choice property in the country.
TRANSCORP's incompetence and scandals in NITEL were so much that the Yar'Adua adminis-tration decided to step in and divest TRANSCORP of its core investment status.
So bad was the TRANSCORP situation that the Stock Exchange under Okereke - Onyiuke had to intervene suspending its shares in order to stop shareholders dumping its stocks.
It is elementary that when the regulator descends into the arena as a player there are bound to be conflicts. This is the major problem of the Stock Exchange Chief Executive.
Since the welcome exit of President Obasanjo's government, the stocks of NSE have been tumbling in the Nigerian market; with her Obama gambit, they may be heading for a crash. One of the options the EFCC is considering is to wrestle the money already collected from the "Africa for Obama" group and refund it to its original owners.
I do not think this is a good idea. The money came from an overfed "Corporate Nigeria" which could afford a N2 million-per-table dinner.
Since they went to the dinner, ate, drank and gisted, they neither deserve the money nor do they need it. It is already an expenditure in their books.
Rather, the money should be turned over to some orphanage, old peoples home or an institution of the physically challenged. "Corporate Nigeria" seems contented with being enmeshed in the waters of the Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke Stock Exchange.
They can remain there until enough courage is mustered to reclaim the Nigeria Stock Exchange for the shareholders.
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