The Effrontery! – How Mr. Osioke Ojior Has Chosen to Bite Off More Than He Can Chew

By Emeka Oparaugo, Corporate Journalist and Business Management Consultant

Enugu



The chickens have come home to roost, and this time, they are not taking any chances. We must speak up and ensure this recompense for evil doing and blasphemy takes its full course. We say “end corruption, end corruption” in Nigeria, and we think only of those in the seats of power. Many times it’s the reverse. Playing the victim card when you’re the orchestrator of malice, just because you’re not particularly in the limelight, is the worst kind of demonstration of wickedness.

In fact, let’s not do too much roundabout preambles. In the recent months, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has experienced a sack scandal that has left people – company employees and the general public – quite polarized on which side to stand for. On the one side is the NIBSS and Mr. Premier Oiwoh (the current MD/CEO) who, on instruction from the company’s directors, initiated a well-thought-out, well-executed repositioning exercise for the company (which, unfortunately, but necessarily, involved the laying off of persons who could not make the new mark of service delivery needed to move the company forward); and on the other side is a group of 23 laid off employees headed by Mr. Osioke Ojior, who, after being laid off and given enviable severance packages, made a complete U-turn to defame the reputation of Mr. Oiwoh, and the NIBSS, on claims of unfair treatment during lay-off process and incompetence in leadership and administration of the NIBSS. My purpose here is to make things very clear as one who has carefully gone through the series of events – Mr. Osioke Ojior is a greedy man who wishes to bite off more than he can chew, and woe to him, like curses, his chickens have come home to roost!

Mr. Osioke Ojior worked in the NIBSS for 5 years as the Chief Risk Officer (CRO), and through all five years, he failed to demonstrate the quality required of Chief Risk Officer of a financial market infrastructure such as NIBSS Plc. Since joining in 2014, successive members of the Board Audit & Risk Management Committee have questioned his capacity to run the risk management function of the Company; he has not been convincing in his performance as CRO to the point of the Committee stating categorically that risk management function is non-existent in the Company; His presentations has been described variously as being theoretical, abstract and not speaking to any incident or threat that the Company might be facing, and for two consecutive years, he was ranked as ‘Below Expectation’ in year-end performance appraisals for 2017 and 2018.

Mr. Ojior, some good time before the NIBSS began moves to lay staff off, had suggested himself the sacking of NIBSS staff for the sake of, in his words, “optimizing the workforce”. His very rationale was that activating severance at 20 years of service – which is when NIBSS stops gratuity payments – will help optimize workforce, and that the severance for any supervisory role (SBO, AM, DM, Mgr, and SM) at the bottom of the 2017-2018 performance rating will accelerate the workforce. Mind you, in those same years, he fell below said performance appraisal lines.

Come 3rd quarter, 2019, and the very retrenchment he proposed began, but his influence could not get near it because there was a new man at the hem, and he meant business. Typically, and quite expectedly, he falls below the appraisal line again after independent performance edits, and his name is included among those to be laid off. Once this happened, his ugly side which had been stewing all this while, jumped out, and got the better of him. He began a process aimed at corporate suicide for the NIBSS and Mr. Premier Oiwoh, but he miscalculated. He thought he’d take down the image of a company now repurposed to provide excellent service, but he ended up blasting himself in the foot.

He received, as is according to the company’s Human Resource policy (Article 3.7.1), the Nigerian Labour law, and the details of their employment contracts, salary in lieu of notice of termination of contract, his pension contribution in his Retirement Savings Account (RSA), and his share of the *N594,000,000.00 (Five Hundred and Ninety-Four Million Naira)* the company paid as gratuity under the Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) with to the pension fund administrator of his choosing. His access to the National Health Insurance Programme for the unexpired period covered by the premium already paid by NIBSS was still maintained, and the policy for company cars – which only applies to retiring staff, not laid off staff – was, as a palliative, still offered to him.

This is the severance package for a grossly incompetent fellow who had been endured for 5 years, and had at one time, motioned for the laying off of people better than him at work? Really? Is this not a treatment more than fair? And what does this man do? He leads a charge based on false allegations and claims that cannot be proven to remove someone who’s offered this much kindness! He did not at least ask for his position back– if fear of what’s next is his concern. No. He went ahead to create noise on social media, writing to the National Assembly, and co-opting 22 other gullible sets of people.

Where does it end, I ask? Are you not the problem we have in this country? Does this in any way exemplify someone to defend? Someone that seeks justice? No. This is the mind of a true tyrant with violent mobocratic inclinations. It is greed, plain and simple.

Initially, I did not want to comment on this saga, but then, I did not know the full story. Now that I do, I feel so enraged at the effrontery of this man, Ojior, and that has led to this. And I suggest we all speak out against this kind of subversive blackmail. It is easy to get emotional and support the plight of the victim in cases like this, but then, if you can pause and take a minute to reassess things, you easily find that the persons claiming the victim are really the oppressors. Ever been wrongly accused of rape before? Now you get the picture. Let’s stop this man before he wreaks more havoc. Use your pens, use your words. Speak out.

Stop the blackmail, Osioke!

http://leaders.ng/the-effrontery-how-mr-osioke-ojior-has-chosen-to-bite-off-more-than-he-can-chew-opinion/

Fight of the titans