I do not know whether Senator Solomon Ita Enang was being Machiavellian or he simply intended to tell a “noble lie” when he claimed on the floor of the Senate last Wednesday in the course of his contribution to the debate on the controversial Petroleum Industry Bill, that Northerners controlled 83% of the oil wells in the Niger Delta.
Whatever his purpose, his claim, I am sure, would be hard to beat as the crudest attempt yet by any Nigerian politician to lie with statistics. This, I must say, makes the way the Nigerian media has reported and commented on his claim as if it was the truth and nothing but the gospel truth, even worse.
Among the elementary rules of reporting are balance, fairness and verification of all claims and allegations. But even without crosschecking the facts, simple logic alone would’ve exposed the senator’s claim as untenable; everyone knows that all sectors of the oil business in Nigeria are dominated through and through by the oil majors, all of them foreign.
Of course facts sometimes defy logic. However, the oil business is not one of those exceptions that confirm the rule.
In its edition of September 23, 1991, the rested Citizen newsmagazine I managed did a prize winning cover story on the move by the Federal Military Government under General Ibrahim Babangida to facilitate the indigenization of the upstream sector of the oil business.
The 14 companies whose bids succeeded were owned by a judicious mix of the wealthy from all sections of the country, including Alfred James owned by the Ooni clan, Moncroief owned by Esama of Benin, Summit Oil owned by Chief M.K.O. Abiola and Queens Petroleum owned by the Ibru clan.
Even more importantly in the light of Senator Enang’s claim, most of the oil blocks owed by Northerners were, as pointed out by Toyin Akinosho, the publisher of the well-regarded Africa Oil and Gas Report, in an article on Premium Times online newspaper of March 7, unproductive – and have remained so to date. Anyone interested in the truth about the ownership of Nigeria’s oil industry should search for and read the article.
If the senator’s manipulation of statistics is worrisome, worse can be said of the media. In apparently swallowing the senator’s story hook, line and sinker, we failed the elementary test of verification, balance and fairness.
FEEDBACK
Re: OBJ at 76
Sir,
As usual, I have read your offering today and by now, I guess you must be tired of hearing how brilliant it is. But there is an error of fact which is rather strange with your column so I think you need to correct it. Mr John Dara did not, and so could not have said, he “managed the improbable success of Chief Otedola in beating Alhaji Lateef Jakande in the Lagos governorship elections conducted under General Babangida’s transition programme.” Because that is not true.
If I recollect very well, it was actually Jakande who helped Sir Michael Otedola to power and this what how it happened: In the course of the 1991 Gubernatorial elections, Otedola was the candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC), having defeated Mrs Oluremi Adikwu by a narrow margin at their primaries. But the Social Democratic Party (SDP) could not produce a candidate after an acrimonious primaries between Chief Dapo Sarumi (then heavily backed by the late Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua) and the late Prof. Dapo Agbalajobi, (sponsored by Jakande). At the end, the duo were disqualified by the Prof Humphrey Nwosu-led National Electoral Commission (NEC). In the new primaries that followed, Mr Yomi Edu, another protégé of the late Yar’Adua, won the SDP ticket.
So the gubernatorial contest in Lagos State was then between Otedola of NRC and Edu of SDP. But following this development, Jakande called on his supporters to vote for Otedola against his party’s candidate and even though the NRC had only two members while SDP had 38 members in the State House of Assembly, Otedola won the election on the strength of support from Jakande. That was what happened.
While I know Mr John Dara played a major role in Otedola’s campaign, especially with regards to the NRC primaries, as far as the election proper was concerned, I think it is necessary to set the record straight that Jakande actually helped to put Otedola in power.
Olusegun Adeniyi
Sir,
My late father warned me never to open my mouth too wide when talking with journalists, but the urge to share some of my behind-the-scene political maneuvers sometimes make me forget this fatherly counsel.
I’d sent you an SMS in reaction to your March 6, 2013 write-up on “OBJ at 76″, pointing out minor inaccuracies about my relationship with the late Dr. Saraki and the role of Alhaji Jakande in the election of Sir Michael Otedola in the 1991 Lagos State governorship elections. I now have to elaborate on the text message in reaction to the comments of Segun Adeniyi which you shared with me.
I’m uncomfortable with the ‘thorn in the flesh of Saraki’ bit because it’s not relevant to the Obasanjo story. My conflict with the late Dr. Saraki started in 2002 when I ran for the office of the governor of Kwara State. I reconciled with the old man after the 2005 National Political Reform Conference in which we both played key roles not only as delegates, but especially as bridge builders between the northern and the Niger Delta delegates, proposing compromises and reaching out to elders and leaders to avoid stalemates. Although I politely turned down his subsequent invitation to become a Sarakite, I developed more respect and admiration for him and for his political acumen. We maintained a good personal relationship till his death.
Segun’s comments on the Otedola-Jakande part of your write-up, which you shared with me, is essentially in agreement with my earlier text message to you in which I said Otedola won that election ” with the clandestine help of Jakande”. However, Segun’s impressive recollection of the events of that period inadvertently exaggerated the role of Jakande and demeaned the remarkable role of John Dara and the then Michael Otedola Campaign Organization (MOCO).
I have managed several political campaigns over the years, and as a Fellow of the Certified Institute of Marketing Communications in Nigeria, I consider the Otedola Campaign as one of the most daring and well-managed political campaigns in Nigeria’s political history. Many analysts had superficially explained Sir Otedola’s unusual victory as being a product of luck or the ‘mystic’ in his name (Otedola literarily means ‘conflicts and intrigues turn to wealth’).
I was privileged to be the Director General of the Campaign Organization. I wrote a formal Campaign Plan with a detailed Situation Analysis. We anticipated the crisis in Lagos SDP which was a localization of the PSP vs. PF rivalry in SDP nationwide. We built on the ‘strength’ of Otedola as a ‘Christian from rural Lagos’. We ran an in-depth campaign in rural Lagos. We had a Ward-by-Ward, polling booth-by-polling booth, church-by-church and mosque-by-mosque campaign network. There was a great campaign theme “That Lagos May Now Excel”(which later earned Lagos the ‘State of Excellence’ appellation). The theme was backed with bold and colourful visuals.
We also did a formal Influence Channel Analysis. We identified the then out-going Military Administration of Governor Raji Rasaki, the Church, the Press and any disgruntled faction of SDP(among others) as critical success factors. When Agbalajobi was initially declared winner, we were already having partnership discussions with Sarumi. When subsequently, Yomi Edu became SDP candidate, we mobilized MOCO members to join Agbalajobi supporters to protest the ‘injustice’ and to widen the schism in SDP. We kept to our script and offered to partner with the aggrieved Jakande group. John Dara and Sen. Tony Adefuye initiated the dialogue that resulted in the deal. The intricate negotiations took place at the V/I residence of the late Prince Dapo Sijuade.
There were many heroes of the Otedola Campaign and victory: Late Chief Baruwa(Olori Eleyo) of NRC, Late Alh. Baruwa (then Chairman of SDP), Late Chief Babs Akerele, Dr. Charles Fadipe, Dr. Segun Ogundimu, Late Dr. Segun Oyefule, Alh. Umaru Shinkafi(who gave money and facilitated police support), church leaders who moved out the votes, pressmen like Sina Ogunbambo, Yetunde Arebi, Kunle Oyatomi and all MOCO members who saw the future with me. It was a well coordinated teamwork.
We remain grateful to Alh. Lateef Jakande for his (mutually beneficial) assistance, and to Gen. Raji Rasaki who was arguably more critical to our success than anyone else (he nominated Otedola’s running-mate, blocked the SDP last-ditch rigging effort in the expansive Ojo LGA, and helped in several other ways. Above all, God made it happen.
I’m not ready yet to write my memoirs, may be it will be titled “The Contributions Of A Small Role Player In Nigeria’s Political Development”. It will feature stories that may moderate public perception of some important political developments and players. For now, let’s wait, ‘make I reach where I dey go’. And by the way, Mohammed, leave me and my Baba alone o.
John Dara
