USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [edo-nationality] Re: [ Vice Chancellors & Cronyism | are these people qualified?

 

 

eRG:

 

I'll rather have Mallam Nasir el Rufai in my corner instead of Senator

Sodangi. The Sodangi Report is a discredited document with a mission

to get back at  el Rufai based on the latter's  refusal as Minister of

FCT to cut corners for Sodangi and his fellow lawmakers as he worked ruthless

to ensure that the Abuja Master Plan was implemented according to the original

documents.

 

Do you know how many plots of land Sodangi, el Rufai's chief accuser, had in his

name in FCT Abuja and surrounding territories?

 

Bye,

 

Ola

 

 

 

---- Original Message ----
From: eRG <edoregeneration@yahoo.co.uk>
To: NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com; enyimocha@gmail.com; edo-nationality@yahoogroups.com
Cc: nigerianid@yahoogroups.com; omoodua@yahoogroups.com; NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; dandalin-siyasa@yahoogroups.com; AfricanTalk@yahoogroups.com; USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, Jul 7, 2011 2:37 pm
Subject: [edo-nationality] Re: [ Vice Chancellors & Cronyism | are these people qualified?

 

"Mallam el Rufai was just as shocked as any one else to discover through the EFCC rap sheet that Dr Ismaillah Iro  had 32 plots of land registered being held "in trust" for him--through the use of proxies!in his own name alone--not to mention others that were probably" - kassim

Country people

Olola Kassim is still making excuses for Nosiru's kleptocracy at FCT, maybe he hasn't seen the Sodangi report. Well, guy men call this situation the "mugu" mentality  - the tendency to continually defend those that are conning you in the hope that some crumbs will drop from their table unto your lap. An old English proverb says; "a fool and his money are easily parted", but in the creeks, we wonder how a fool and his money got together in the first place.

eRG

"God gives, Man hoards and Satan steals" - eRG's Father

---

From: "OlaKassimMD@aol.com" <OlaKassimMD@aol.com>
To: NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com; enyimocha@gmail.com
Cc: nigerianid@yahoogroups.com; omoodua@yahoogroups.com; NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; dandalin-siyasa@yahoogroups.com; AfricanTalk@yahoogroups.com; USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, 7 July, 2011 18:56:04
Subject: [NIgerianWorldForum] Re: [ Vice Chancellors & Cronyism | are these people qualified?

 

Quote:

 

Dr Kassim,

Just for information purposes, did this swindle or misappropriation at AGIS of land purportedly allocated to diasporans did it happen under a supervising minister or the civil servants at AGIS took advantage of the transition gap between two ministers to convert diasporan land to themselves?--Pastor Joe

 

UnQuote

 

Pastor Joe:

 

The misappropriation of plots of land at the Abuja Diaspora Village

happened right under the nose of the supervising Minister

of the FCT who was just as equally surprised as myself to find that some applicants

had been excluded from the list of those who were allocated plots of land.

 

According to Mallam el Rufai--he  approved every application that was brought

to his desk for his signature. Little did he know that his senior officials--Mallam Ismaillah Iro

and Madam Altine who were both in charge of the project had substitutd their own

fake Diaspora names for some of the genuine ones that we submitted from the

NIDO A office in Washington, DC.. How could a supervising minister tell which name

on a list of Diaspora Nigerians are genuine and which ones are false--considering

the chaos in most of Nigerian bureaucracy? The normals instinct is to trust one's senior

officials to do the right things--even though as it turned out in this case the duo of

Dr Ismaillah Iro, (a former Diasporan) and Madam Altine betrayed his trust in this

particular case. Thieves thrive in the public service when ever we throw out the checks

and balances and normal SOPs that are specified in the blue book.

 

Mallam el Rufai was just as shocked as any one else to discover

through the EFCC rap sheet that Dr Ismaillah Iro  had 32 plots of land registered

in his own name alone--not to mention others that were probably

being held "in trust" for him--through the use of proxies!

 

If the transition period played a role at all it would have been in the frustration

experienced by myself and the NIDO A office staff as were unable to communicate

with anyone in amore senior position during this period.

 

Dr Iro kept on giving me one lame excuse
after the other for either not sending the list to me as promised or publishing it on the AGIS web site.

It was either that NEPA took light and a power surge caused a major crash of the AGIS computer

system or another untenable one.

 I finally gave up when he told me that I could find the list of Diaspora allot tees mixed in alphabetically

with thousands of names of other applicants in a published gazette. I was never

able to track down this gazette! They did all they could to frustrate us and cover up tracks!

 

Bye,

 

Ola

---- Original Message ----
From: topcrest topcrest <topcrestt@yahoo.com>
To: OlaKassimMD@aol.com; enyimocha@gmail.com
Cc: nigerianid@yahoogroups.com; omoodua@yahoogroups.com; NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com; dandalin-siyasa@yahoogroups.com; AfricanTalk@yahoogroups.com; USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, Jul 7, 2011 12:51 pm
Subject: [NIgerianWorldForum] Re: NigerianID | Vice Chancellors & Cronyism | are these people qualified?

 

"I found to my chagrin and dismay that promises made to me by Dr Ismaillah Iro that he would 

 forward a full list of the successful

candidates  by  email to me within two days of arriving back at his office in Abuja were nothing but empty

promises--as releasing such a list to me would have exposed the misappropropriation that had taken place

at AGIS, (without my knowledge) of many of the plots of land that were allocated to genuine Diaspora applicants..."

Dr Kassim,

Just for information purposes, did this swindle or misappropriation at AGIS of land purportedly allocated to diasporans did it happen under a supervising minister or the civil servants at AGIS took advantage of the transition gap between two ministers to convert diasporan land to themselves?

Joe

---

From: "OlaKassimMD@aol.com" <OlaKassimMD@aol.com>
To: enyimocha@gmail.com
Cc: nigerianid@yahoogroups.com; omoodua@yahoogroups.com; NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com; dandalin-siyasa@yahoogroups.com; AfricanTalk@yahoogroups.c om; USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, July 7, 2011 1:50:02 PM
Subject: NigerianID | Vice Chancellors & Cronyism | are these people qualified?

 

 

 

Dominic:

 

I have had a lot of time to reflect on my performance as Chairman NIDO Americas Inc.

in the intervening years. I currently have a good idea about what I did well and what

I could have done better.

 

Contrary to your assertion that I was opaque and clandestine and that I was not transparent

until it was already too late, I believe that my greatest mistake as Chairman of NIDO A

was in being too openly accessible and transparent in all my actions. I was too much in your face--

openly challenging and correcting misleading information while providing the correct ones.

 

I believe, I was applying the ethos I had picked up growing up in Nigeria and which currently prevails

in Canadian public life to a different audience--a Nigerian one, which had over the years become so skeptical

that it considers 'honesty in public service' as a complete oxymoron.

 

Within two days of arriving back in Toronto, from the 2007 NIDO AGM in Houston Texas,

 I published a list of Nigerians in Canada whose applications for plots of land at the Abuja Diaspoya were successful.

If I had had in my hands the full list of all successful applicants, I would have published it the same day.

 

The Canadian list was culled from the names on the Certificates of Right of Occupancy (i.e. the land award certificates) that were  duly

 signed by Malllam Nasir el Rufai, then Minister of the FCT which were delivered to me in

bulk without an accompanying list by Dr Ismaillah Iro, then Director of Land Registry at the Abuja Diaspora Village

at the AGM.

 

I personally took the certificates of my fellow Nigerians in Canada with me back to Toronto and spent my

own funds to courier the Certificates of Rights  Occupancy for safe delivery to the successful candidates.

I also  instructed the NIDO office Manager to courier the certificates for the successful candidates in the USA to their

addresses on record.

 

I found to my chagrin and dismay that promises made to me by Dr Ismaillah Iro that he would 

 forward a full list of the successful

candidates  by  email to me within two days of arriving back at his office in Abuja were nothing but empty

promises--as releasing such a list to me would have exposed the misappropropriation that had taken place

at AGIS, (without my knowledge) of many of the plots of land that were allocated to genuine Diaspora applicants.

 

I was caught between my personal desire for full transparency and the unwillingness of the officials

in Abuja to provide the requested information. As this was a transition period, there was no substantive

Minister of the FCT that I could complain to as Mallam el Rufai had left office and the new Minister

was yet to take office.

 

I had published the Canadian list in full expectation that I would be receiving the full list from Abuja within

days. The responses I received from the publication of the list of Canadian applicants were negative and critical

similar to what you have just done with Bolaji's public disclosure of some information regarding attendants

at a brainstorming session held in Abuja for the Federal University of Otueke. There were compaints

about the ethnic composition of the Nigerians on the list from Canada --about 60% of whom were Yoruba.
No one paid attention to my pleas that neither the NIDO Executive, the NIDO Office Manager nor my self

paid any direct role in the allocations of land at the Abuja Diaspora Village which were done at the ministers

 directive by senior officials at AGIS in Abuja..

 

You cannot apply or superimpose Canadian notions about public life on Nigeria and Nigerians.

Your example of the VC of the University of Toronto while laudable might not be directly applicable

to the Nigerian scene.

While it is not totally free of corrupt practices, those who serve in the Canadian public arena

are expected to abide by some ethical principles and the need to separate public funds from private

ones. These are principles that no longer apply in Nigeria.

 

The current expectation in Nigeria is that it is only the rare public servant who would not steal

from the public purse if he she/had the opportunity. Put another way, it is only the stupid Nigerian

public official who would not steal from the public purse.

 

I believe that Nigerians lost our notion of probity and honesty in public service during the decades of

military rule--a period during which all checks and balances which normally keep public

officials honest were thrown overboard--in favour of the Oga Sir principles. Our government

officials dis what they were tole by their ogas--no matter whether it is againt normal protocol

or else they face dire consequences--e.g demotions or frank dismissals from their jobs..

 

I have heard in private conversations--that former President Obasanjo frequently counseled his

new appointees along these lines;

"if you steal 5% to 10% of your budget I will not complain but if you start stealing up to 15% or 20% I will

expose you and shout "ole, ole; ole (thief; thief; thief) at you as you are being ignomimosuly removed

from office."

 

I cannot not tell for sure whether this caution purportedly from President Obasanjo is

true or false or whether or not it is exagerrated. It suffices however to state that our public officials

behave in tandem with public expectations!

 

The other example I will cite is this one. The first thing I ever read from eRG on line several years ago was his response

during the crisis in the NIDO leadership in late 2007 when I disclosed that NIDO board members including myself

had spent our own personal funds ( including in some cases thousands of US dollars) while running the affairs of NIDO A.

 He expressed his shock that any sane Nigerian

would ever spent a kobo or cent of his/her own personal funds in pursuit of any public objective in Nigeria.

That was my wake up call--about what I have now realized is a completely changed Nigerian moral landsacape--

one that is so different from the one that I was raised in that I could barely recognize it.

 

In closing, I have come to the conclusion that Nigerians do not deserve, based on the mindset of the majority

of the population, (including the enlightened and the unenlightened)-- honest leadership. I doubt if we would recognize

and cherish good and honest leaders when we see them--considering that we expect all leaders--both elected

and appointed to be corrupt.

 

And yet, the truth remains that there are some honest and capable Nigerians   in public service!

But we do not give them their due recognition and respect as we tend to lump together with the corrupt ones.

The rewards of the Okonjo-Iwealas, Agangas, Oby-Ezekwesilis and many more will never come

from the gratitude of Nigerians for their public service and sacrifice but rather only from heaven!

 

I repeat Nigerians are NOT morally and culturally prepared for a free for of all open exhange of public information.

The honest self reporter is more likely to be crucified than praised for his/her efforts. I believe you proved

the point in the way you dissected Bolaji Aluko's information on the brainstroming session abiout Fed. U of Otueke

and came up with the following grossly misleading conclusions:

 

a) having the elder Alukos on the list of attendants is a form of conflict of interest.

 

b) the presence of 6 AfriHub consultants at the session constituted a possible conflict of interest

and a possible intent to award contracts to the company without following the proper procedures.

 

c) etc. etc, etc.

 

You are busy lambasting Bolaji Aluko for disclosing information about Fed U of O in a public forum

while the VCs of the other 8 newly created universities are busy working on their own projects

far away from public glare! What gives?

 

 

Bye,

 

Ola

---- Original Message ----
From: Dominic Ogbonna <enyimocha@gmail.com>
To: OlaKassimMD@aol.com
Cc: nigerianid@yahoogroups.com; omoodua@yahoogroups.com; NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com; Dandalin Siyasa <dandalin-siyasa@yahoogroups.com>; AfricanTalk <AfricanTalk@yahoogroups.com >
Sent: Thu, Jul 7, 2011 12:30 am
Subject: Re: NigerianID | Vice Chancellors & Cronyism | are these people qualified?

"Self reporting to a Nigerian audience can be suicidal to one's career and reputation. I strongly believe that Nigerians are not well suited for this kind of free for all information." -Ola Kassim

Not if you are transparent and have nothing to hide. You, Dr Kassim, in your own case, you were proactively opaque  and clandestine, not transparent.  Not until it was already too late. 

As a result, even today, fair-minded and well-intentioned people can not know for sure if  you were guilty, if you were innocent, if you were half-guilty, or if you were half-innocent.  That's the problem you faced with NIDO and the Abuja land deals -precisely the absolute lack, abi initio, of transparency.

Professor Aluko, on the other hand, is erring on the side of pro-active transparency. That's the way it should be, and he should be encouraged to keep it up, not encouraged to join the committee of those who already have a question mark hanging over their head. 

Now of course, he will NEVER be able to satisfy everyone, anymore that Obama's birth certificate will satisfy every critic. But he will, if he does nothing wrong, satisfy fair-minded and reasonable people, and they are always in the majority. That's all that counts.

Moving on ....

"Anyone seeking a report of the finances of the Federal University of Utuoke should follow the proper procedures--by writing to the Finance Dept of the institution and if unsuccessful try using the FOI bill to get such information." Ola Kassim


Yep, that's the kind of attitude that will get you in trouble!  It is certainly NOT what the Vice Chancellor at the University of Toronto is doing. The Vice Chancellor in Toronto is in-charge of 45,000 students (!!!), and he has his own website.

And Guess what? One prominent page on that website is specifically dedicated to "Travel And Hospitality Expense Reports".  Allow me to quote from the Vice Chancellor himself:

"The University of Toronto is committed to good governance and transparency.  Annual reporting advances transparency.  Fiscal responsibility, sound administration, and conscientious internal audit support good governance. As part of my commitment to these important standards, I am proactively disclosing online the travel and hospitality expenses incurred in my duties as University President."

You can see the rest  here: http://www.president.utoronto.ca/aboutthepresident/travel-hospitality-reports.htm

Dominic

 

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 11:12 PM, <OlaKassimMD@aol.com> wrote:

 

Lady Joan:

Thanks!

Self reporting to a Nigerian audience can be suicidal to one's career and reputation.
I strongly believe that Nigerians are not well suited for this kind of free for all
information.

No matter how clean, clear and detailed the report is, one can usually bet that there
will be some Nigerians who would find some fault--e.g. evidence
of favortism, nepotism, tribalism etc. in such a report.

Anyone seeking a report of the finances of the Federal University of Utuoke should
follow the proper procedures--by writing to the Finance Dept of the institution and
if unsuccessful try using the FOI bill to get such information.

I am certain Bolaji Aluko will soon learn that his voluntary self reporting efforts would cause
him much more headache than his desire for transparency could ever have envisaged.

Those who loot the treasury in Nigeria are unlikely to be seeing doing so in the
public glare of an internet newsgroup

The job of a VC is too complex to be conducted over the Internet. Any relevant information should
be published on the website of the Fed. U of Utuoke and not on naijapolitics or any other
yahoogroups.

Bolaji Aluko should let the PR department of Fed U of Utuoke handle the
public information issues relating to the fledgling institution which has been placed
under his care.

Bye,

Ola

-----Original Message-----
From: joan.Osa Oviawe <joanoviawe@gmail.com>
Sent: Wed, Jul 6, 2011 2:59 pm
Subject: NigerianID | Vice Chancellors & Cronyism | are these people qualified?

 

Mazi Ogbonna,

The over-arching question should be: are these people qualified? Are they amongst the best hands in their areas of expertise? And was their remunerations excessive?

I remember the first time I met Mrs. Aluko, it was at an African regional conference on dialogue amongst civilizations- organized by UNESCO and which they had invited me to attend in Abuja. During the Q & A session, Mrs. Aluko stood up to make a comment and for the few minutes that she spoke, held everyone enthralled and by the time she was done talking, the convener insisted that she had to come and sit on the head table with them!  She didn't want to, said she was happy where she was sitting in the audience, but everyone insisted that she needed to be up there.  She was sharp, cerebral, was able to frame the issues that some were struggling to articulate and subsequently manged to put a lid on the Anglophone v. Francophone Africa wranglings that were starting to crop up. For such a woman to be invited to participate in any strategic planning session, I believe is a great service to the University. This is not umbilical cord nepotism now, but pure and simple professionalism!  Except you are trying to say the woman does not have any other qualification other than being somebody's mother!

I have no doubt that the other individuals on the list, can also hold their own next to any other person in their fields. I participated in a teleconference with Prof. Manny Anienbonam (sp?) and he is a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is, kind of person and the state of his mental acuity is not in doubt either.

A lot of people bring their friends and family members on board to work with them, even when such family members have no expertise in what they are being asked to do. This is hardly the case in this situation.

Making innuendos that are unfounded will ultimately inhibit other would-be self reporters from following Prof. Aluko's example.

Saludos,
jOo

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 10:54 AM, Dominic Ogbonna <enyimocha@gmail.com> wrote:

 

"We should give credit to whom credit is due! Prof. Aluko should be applauded for his unique and proactive attempt at self reporting. After all, he didn't have to disclose anything to this forum. " -Joan Osa

"Ovbie mama, I dey like dele no be small. Yinka Leo Ogundiran as PA to the VC of Otuoke, Muyiwa Sobo as legal adviser to FU Otuoke. Dem say when dirty too much for soup even blind man go know say dis no be crayfish.My dear, don't worry, your "own" miracle is on it's way as ordained by God and shall be delivered by Angel eRG" -EGR


Sister Joan.Osa:

Your point is a very good one, and professor Aluko should be commended for the disclosure.

But ERG has a KEY point. When I read Bolaji's list yesterday, I shook my  head, and didn't know what to make of it. Of the 27 people invited, at least 5 names would already raise eye-brows in other climes.

1. Sam Aluko - Bolaji's own father !!!
2. Joyce Aluko -Bolaji's own Mother !!!
3. Manny Aniebonam -Bolaji's Business Partner, and President/CEO, AfriHub, Abuja
4. Collins Harrison - again from from AfriHub
5. Victoria Nwadiugwu -again from AfriHub

As you can see, a company called  "AfriHUB" alone supplied three representatives, and Bolaji's immediate family supplied another three!!

But who is AfriHUB anyway?

For those who don't know, AfriHUB is a business where professor Aluko has a serious Financial Interest. It is a corporation in which, to the best of my  knowledge, professor Aluko still holds a position as

(a.) A Consultant
(b.) A Member of the Management Team!
(b.) A Member of the Board Of Directors!

The AfriHUB website is right here: 

http://www.afrihub.com/?cat=4

If you click on the "Management Team", and on the "Board Members", you will see that professor Aluko's name and photo and  listed at least twice.

Which brings up the question: Those three folks from AfriHUB:

(1.) Did they come as contractors applying for business, and hopefully competing with everybody else, including ERG, who is running an IT company?
(2.) Did they come as NO-BID cronies and contractors who will get contract allocations the same way that Dieziani allocates oil blocks?
(3.) Did they spend their own dime to hustle for this Otueke business, and or we in fact paying them to fly down from the USA  to come get some business?
(4.) The fact that professor Aluko has a financial interest in Afri-HUB, should it matter at all?  Is there a potential conflict of interest here, or does anyone who raise the matter simply become a "hater" ?
(5.) Should the Vice Chancellor make effort to ensure that any Otueke business in which AfriHUB is involved goes through a competitive bidding process, and is not just allocated by cronyist and nepotist fiat?

I don't know the answers. You make the call.


Dominic

__._,_.___

Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic

Messages in this topic (1)

Recent Activity:

Visit Your Group

visit our website:

http://www.edo-nation.net

You can also get a free email service from http://www.edo-nation.net.
This is the first Nigerian website to offer free emails and the only still offering it free.


"Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it." - Frantz Fanon
Please visit our web site:-

www.edo-nation.net

Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use

.

__,_._,___

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com