The gripping allegations of official corruption in Nigeria, by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and founder of Econet Wireless, Strive Masiyuwa, is numbing.
Mr Masiyuwa resorted to his blog, to inform the public how his company was frustrated out of Nigeria, following alleged corrupt actions of the former Governor of Delta state, Chief James Ibori, in connivance with a slew of other state officials and smart lawyers in London, led by one Bhadresh Gohil, who acted as advisers.
According to the CEO, hundreds of millions of dollars may have been stolen from the Nigerian state, through duplicitous dealings in the Econet shares by two state governments.
The sad experience of Econet Wireless, the technical partner and operator of the first GSM company in Nigeria, requires a revisit by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, considering his government’s avowal to deal with corruption.
Going down memory lane, Mr Masiyuwa recalled how his company rallied about 22 Nigerian investors, including banks, high net worth individuals, state governments, and other institutional investors to raise the cost of the licence, which stood at $285 million – the most expensive licence ever issued in Africa, as at 200. The licence grant followed a spectacularly transparent bidding process by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), which afterwards auctioned two GSM licenses.
Mr Masiyuwa claimed his travails started when he was asked to pay $9 million as bribes to senior state government officials that helped to raise money to buy the licence. He refused.
He alleged that the former governor of Delta State specifically demanded $4.5 million in his private capacity. After several meetings could not resolve the impasse, Mr Ibori allegedly threatened: “Pay or I will chase you and your people out of the country”.
He apparently did – for when Mr. Masiyuwa refused to pay, the shareholders met and voted Econet Wireless out as Manager of the licence. Mr Masiyuwa and his over 200 staff and family members were indeed “chased out of the country”!
He alleged that later, he was invited to meet the former Governor of Akwa Ibom, Chief Victor Attah in London, who told him that he wanted to sell the 15% shares owned by the state government, claiming that he would use the proceeds to build an airport.
The governor then introduced him to one “Mr Bhadresh Gobil, as our legal adviser here in London”, saying that “I have instructed him to handle all our negotiations with you”. Mr Masiyuwa claimed that when he subsequently met Mr Gohil in his office, he proposed that the proceeds of sale be paid into a Special Purpose Vehicle.
When he questioned the rationale for such a process, Mr Gohil, told him that he was also the lawyer to Governor Ibori, offering that if he accepts the proposal, all the state shares would be sold to his company, to make him majority shareholder.
Mr Masiyuwa’s reckoned that the sophisticated proposal by Mr Gohil could help the state officials siphon over $100 million dollars, in addition to the $13.5 million already paid by the company that took over the management of the licence, and changed the name to VConnect.
He claimed to have carefully recorded the entire scenarios in his small note book, and subsequently petitioned the United States Justice Department. He claimed that his efforts to get the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate fell flat, under former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
If these allegations are true, they would be a sad commentary on the seedy business climate in Nigeria. That is very sad, and should not be tolerated any longer.
If a country always hankers after “foreign investment”, by that very logic it should not tolerate influential citizens and corrupt state officials making brazen victims out of those foreign investors. Yet, that was what Strive Masiyuwa’s cup, for his heroic striving to do business in Nigeria.
The Zimbabwean’s allegations are yet another set of pressing reasons President Buhari should crack down on corrupt practices in every sphere of Nigerian life.
Mr. Masiyuwa’s claim that the Yar’Adua Presidency turned cold on his complaints suggests some illicit influence may have blackmailed that government into culpable inaction. That, if true, was unfortunate. It should never happen again.
In institutional terms, however, the solution is clear, if not so simple, if there is no political will: agencies of state, particularly the ones saddled with corruption, should be structurally empowered to do their work as routine – no prompting, no discouragement, just clinical structural efficiency.
If President Buhari can put such operative reforms in place, the anti-corruption war would not only be easier to fight, it would also become institutionalized, with little or no influence from the sitting government.
That is the legal regime corrupt Nigeria needs.
