http://saharareporters.com/2009/11/05/high-profile-corporate-crimes-nigeria-case-%E2%80%98bata%E2%80%99-company

High profile corporate crimes in Nigeria-the case of ‘Bata’ company
Dear Sahara Reporters, Permit me on behalf of the above mentioned organisation to present to you a matter that has severely and negatively affected the lives and fortunes of over 15000 individuals and organisations in Nigeria. This matter concerns the fortunes of one of the foremost manufacturing outfits in Nigeria which has in the last 70 years of its existence recorded important firsts in the corporate environment of the Organised Private Sector.

Dear Sahara Reporters, Permit me on behalf of the above mentioned organisation to present to you a matter that has severely and negatively affected the lives and fortunes of over 15000 individuals and organisations in Nigeria.

This matter concerns the fortunes of one of the foremost manufacturing outfits in Nigeria which has in the last 70 years of its existence recorded important firsts in the corporate environment of the Organised Private Sector.

This company founded in Nigeria in 1932 initially as a trading company and subsequently a manufacturing outfit in 1964 was originally known as Bata Trading Company and lately up till 1998 as Bata Nig. PLC. It has been the Nigerian subsidiary of the well known universal company Bata Shoe Company headquartered in Canada. Since 1998 it has been re-named and is now known as Footwear and Accessories Manufacturing and Distribution PLC (FAMAD).

The company single-handedly led to the development and modernisation of not only shoe manufacturing in Nigeria but also Tanneries for the processing of leather and allied products such as wet blue. It pioneered the very popular development model of local tanneries that have deep socio-cultural affinity to many third world countries and ethnic groups across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The tanneries in turn stimulated the development of Cattle rearing, Animal husbandry and related agro-based industries. Many modern abattoirs were set up in order to cater for the specific needs of the leather and textile industries developed by this most important pioneer not only in Nigeria but also and more importantly world-wide. Time and space will not allow me to trace the exciting and great entrepreneurial spirit of the great man Thomas Bata, an origin of Czechoslovakia who invented modern day shoe manufacturing process through the technology of the shoe conveyor. Suffice it to note that Thomas Bata was to modern day shoe manufacturing process what the great Henry Ford was to the modern car manufacturing process!

The bottom line being that all modern shoe manufacturers in the world owe Mr Thomas Bata a great deal in the technology and organisational processes of managing their outfits.

The tragedy of our country is that a company that has done so much in transferring technology and transferable technical skills to hundreds of thousands of our working class in the leather and textile sub sector of our economy is now converted to a one family chattel thereby throwing thousands of skilled and semi-skilled labourers and their families in to penury and destitution!

The tragedy of Bata Nig PLC can be traced back to 1997 when Chief (Mrs.) Olakunri single-handedly masterminded the surreptitious exit of Bata Overseas Trading Company (BOTC), the owner of 40% shares and technical partner of Bata Nig PLC. Contrary to the requirements of the Companies And Allied Matters Act (CAMA) and the regulatory requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the regulator of public companies in Nigeria), Chief (Mrs.)Olakunri, using her position as the sitting chairman of the Board of Directors abused her office as the custodian of the interest of all shareholders of the company by illegally transferring the 40% shares that belonged to BOTC to herself and family members without the knowledge or prior approval of the rest of the shareholders. She achieved this feat by a clandestine incorporation of an offshore company in the U.K. and registered in Panama (a tax haven) to illegally purchase the shares kept in her custody as a trust to be held on behalf of the 15000 individual and institutional investors listed as shareholders of the company! She used the shares that belonged to the commonwealth of registered shareholders of the company as collateral with a local bank to obtain a loan used to pay for the purchase of the same shares for herself and members of her family! All these were done without the knowledge, consent or approval of both the board of directors of the company and its shareholders in an AGM as required by the law.

Not only that but the worst part of the matter is that since this deed was perpetrated Chief Olakunri has consistently and with impunity refused to audit the accounts of the company and call an AGM for over seven years now just so as to avoid disclosing this fact before the shareholders and regulatory agencies!

If the above was shocking news then this next part will astound even the most stout-hearted of your readers! For immediately she stole the company Chief Olakunri then embarked on a systematic and professional looting and plagiarisation of the considerable landed and other assets of the company using proxies and fronts! Also using her position as two term pioneer Chairman of the Educational Trust Fund from 1999-2007, Chief (Mrs.) Olakunri set up an elaborate money laundering operation channelling billions of naira through the accounts of the company for money washing and laundering. The most glaring of the various methods adopted by Chief Olakunri to perpetrate these acts had to do with the importation of leather from Kenya at highly inflated prices and in a manner that not even the procurement and stores officers are aware of any records of figures for the importation! LITTLE WONDER THEN THAT THE ACCOUNTS OF THE COMPANY HAVE DEFIED AUDITING EVEN FOR A PROFESSIONAL AUDIT FIRM OF THE CALIBRE OF AKINTOLA WILLIAMS & DELOITTE! IN THEIR PRELIMINARY FINDINGS FOR THE YEARS 2002-2006 THE AUDITORS DISCLAIMED SEVERAL IMPORTANT HEADINGS IN THE ACCOUNTS SUCH AS THIRD PARTY TRANSACTIONS CASH AND STOCK BALANCES INTER ALIA!

NOTE!!!

The most shocking aspect of this saga IS THAT CHIEF (MRS.) OLAKUNRI IS THE FIRST FEMALE CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT PRODUCED IN WEST AFRICA AND ALSO THE FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT OF THE INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS OF NIGERIA(ICAN) WHICH IS THE FOREMOST PROFESSIONAL BODY OF ACCOUNTANTS IN NIGERIA!

Several petitions have been written to SEC and other regulatory and law enforcement agencies in Nigeria concerning this matter without any response except the recent official de-listing of the company from the Stock Exchange thereby giving leverage to the perpetrators of the act to cover their tracks and complete the disenfranchisement of the minority shareholders who have invested their hard-earned income with the hope of reaping a life-time of steady income.

Since the take-over of the company by the rapacious Chief Olakunri and her clique there has been a complete dissemblance of all the valued principles of corporate governance required in the running of a public company. Managers have continued to mismanage the company without any fear of reprisals. Tax deductions made from staff payroll at source have not been remitted to the Inland Revenue office and so workers have difficulty obtaining tax certificates as law abiding citizens. Even deductions made on behalf and for the benefit of members of our cooperative society have continued to be withheld by the management. As at the time of writing many members of the cooperative who have been saving with the company have not been settled after unceremoniously being retrenched by the company. Close to a million naira owed to the cooperative society is still being withheld by the management of the company.

Many workers that have been laid off or retired by the company continue to queue up for their gratuities and terminal benefits for several years without success while managers sell off choice properties and siphon the proceeds to their private pockets!

The full extent of the atrocities being perpetrated in this company by Chief (Mrs.) Olakunri need to be seen to be believed!

We wish to call on the widely acclaimed reputation of Sahara Reporters to stand up for Fundamental Human Rights and the Rule of Law to please come to the aid of the voiceless masses of retired workers, pensioners and severely impoverished shareholders whose rights are being violated with impunity.

We have been told by sources at the Securities and Exchange Commission that as long as Senator Udo Udoma continues to be the chairman of the SEC it would be virtually impossible to bring Chief (Mrs.) Olakunri to order. This is because of the long standing retainership that Udo Udoma’s law firm (Udo Udoma, Bello Osagie & Co.) enjoys from Chief Olakunri. It is also a well known secret that the same law firm (where one of Chief Olakunri’s daughters works) facilitated the illegal takeover of BOTC shares by Chief Olakunri as well as handled many juicy property deals for her since the takeover.(You will find enclosed a petition written by a former Managing Director of the company called Mr. Atewologun to that effect.)

Dear Sahara Reporters, we urgently seek your assistance in airing our grievances to the appropriate quarters. All efforts to get the relevant authorities to respond to our numerous petitions have fallen on deaf ears. In fact Chief (Mrs.) Olakunri have boasted to any one who cares to listen to her that the regulatory and law enforcement agencies including the EFCC can do nothing about this matter because of her connections in high places!


We attach the relevant documents that will help you in conducting objective and independent investigations to ascertain the veracity of our claims.


We endeavour to assist you in any manner you may require to bring this matter to its logical conclusion.


On behalf of the Bata Workers Co-operative Thrift & Credit Society Ltd, the minority shareholders and all stakeholders of this company we call upon you to come to our aid.


We can be contacted via this e-mail: bataworkerscooperative@yahoo.com or Mobile telephone no: 07089097408.


Yours-for-justice,


Yusuf, M.A.


Co-ordinator


Bata Workers Cooperative, Thrift and Credit Society Ltd


N.B.


You may find the following phone numbers useful:


Footwear and Accessories Manufacturing & Distribution PLC


Board of Directors List:


Chief (Mrs.) Olakunri-mobile: 08034030063(Chairman)


Sir K.E. Chima-mobile: 08037115896(Vice Chairman)


Engr.( Mrs.) Mayen Adetiba-mobile: 08023012456(Director)


KLM 15 IKORODU ROAD, OJOTA, LAGOS.


5th November 2009.

I dnt do saharareports.... GEJ till 2019!!!

Booking space. Holla wen it gets to you know where.

I remember those years I used to rock "BATA" shoes. Very quality leather shoes. If you haven't rocked the shoes those years,then you haven't arrived.

Too bad the company folded up.

i miss those BATA shopping dayz

I thought TANoids had fabricated another story on GMB


Thinking of it, the title of this thread looks like something associated with GEJ.
You know, that word 'Mismanaged'.


GMB 2015. Anticorruption is in our DNA.

What a pity!
..I rocked it like I rock my allstars!
..the thick shiny brown leather is something else!
My bata, my best!

This is worthy of our front page.

modified*

This article was written in the year 2009. 5 years down the line nothing has happened.

no comment

LRNZH:

I thought TANoids had fabricated another story on GMB


Thinking of it, the title of this thread looks like something associated with GEJ.
You know, that word 'Mismanaged'.


GMB 2015. Anticorruption is in our DNA.

it was GEJ that mis managed BATA/FAMAD and it folded up