Dear Sir,

OPEN LETTER TO “RICHEST MAN’’ IN AFRICA

I would have sent this letter directly to your 18A Oko Awo Close, Victoria Island address but I know it will end up like its predecessors-in the trashcan. I decided to use this medium because many Nigerian will get to read it. Oh! How you hate negative publicity.
For the past two three years there has been a consistent effort to malign you over the internet. I first saw one of those articles on Pointblanknews in December 2009 with the title ‘How Otunba Mike Adenuga Impoverish Conoil Pensioners.’ I made my comment on the said article and referred the writer to your foundation and the good work you have been doing with your money for Nigerians.

The writer derisively referred me to a popular Nigerian website www.nairaland.com. Fortunately, I am a member of this site. I was flabbergasted to say the least when I saw another article written by a Pastor Yomi Oluselu. His article dripped with anger and frustration.

The Pastor had a brother who had worked for many years with National oil (now Conoil) before he retired. The man who was a top manager with National oil was on a pension of N3600 or thereabout. I made my own contribution that Mike Adenuga the bull could not pay any man, pensioner or whatever N3600 in this present day Nigeria. I told the pastor he must be mistaken.

The deluge of reply I got from many Nairalanders including the pastor was scary. I realised the issue of the pensioners is beginning to pitch Nigerian against you. People are beginning to hate you. Do you visit the net at all? If the president with his busy schedule can still communicate with people on Facebook, I don’t see why you cannot do the same. The business you do, rely on the public goodwill. What if Nigerians begins to throw away their Glo sim card like one Nairalanders suggested? People can shun your petrol stations. What will you do? You think it cannot happen. It can. Oh! I forget your oil block, but can you afford to be in the bad book of Nigerians?

The Pastor told me his brother died on the way to the Lagos High Court Mediation Centre where negotiation had been going one since 2008 on how to disburse the balance in their pension fund. He told me to go to Conoil, Lagos high court and an address in Surulere to verify the veracity of his claim. Conoil would not grant me access to their payroll even if I claim to be a freelance journalist.

At the Lagos High Court, I met a lawyer who confirmed there is an issue at the mediation centre between Conoil pensioners Vs Mike Adenuga. When I asked how long the case had been going on, he laughed and said the case would end up in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest running negotiation in the court. He said he advised the executives at the commencement of the case to take the case to the open court as it would be time wasting to negotiate with their chairman. From his perception of the antics of Nigerian businessmen, the case would drag on for so long many of them would be dead before they can smell the money in dispute. He was ready to take the case free of charge if they would go to open court. Pecuniary reward apart, the case would made him famous because given Mike Adenuga’s status in the society, he will use the case to promote himself to the maximum with the press. The press that refused to carry any of the pensioners’ press briefings will have no choice but report the case because people want to read any negative story about celebrities like Mike Adenuga.

Sir, I must confess I was confused when I left the premises of the Lagos High Court. Could the story be true after all? I drove to Surulere to see the man whose address the Pastor gave me. The man who opened the door was on wheelchair. I introduced myself and told him Pastor Oluselu sent me. He was expecting me because the pastor whose brother was his friend when they were in National oil told him I might come.
He pointed to the screen of the laptop he was working on. ‘Mike Adenuga: The Pensioners Dream Killer’ steered me in the face. He told me he just downloaded it from facebook. Oh, Pastor Oluselu did not write this one but a journalist who they (pensioners) made the mistake of not heeding his advice when SERAC took their case to court to compel Mike Adenuga to release his stranglehold on their N2.6B pension fund set up for them by Shell.

Is it true some of them are earning less than N4000? He opened a drawer and showed me his current pay slip. It was N3660. I was dazed. What kind of man pays a man who retired as an accountant in an oil company N3660. He retorted to my unspoken question that his salary would have been at least thrice if Adenuga had not stopped the approved yearly 12% annual increase when he bought into National Oil in 2000. He gave me mountain high copies of their payroll from where I confirmed that many of them had been earning that salary without any change since 2000!

The man who begs me not to mention his name for security reasons when I told him I would write you said they are tired of the never-ending negotiation. He believes you had divided the executive by “settling” some of them. He said he did not trust you to honour any agreement reached since the negotiation that ordinarily should not have been more than two months has now dragged on for three years. They have decided without the knowledge of the suspected traitors among them to take the case to the open court using a popular Lagos lawyer who likes publicity a lot. If by July, they did not receive their cheque, to the court it is.

Sir, why did you let the negotiation drag on for so long? Why did you refuse to append your signature to the agreement reached over 6 months ago when you are the one that gave permission to proceed to negotiate? Your lawyers they told me always come to court saying they are unable to see you.

These people are suffering. The man I saw on wheelchair looked pathetic. This man served your company for over 30 years! What is N2.6 billion to a man of your status even if it is your money? The man told me you forced them to accept N1.033b as the final settlement instead of the N2.6b in the account. How can this be? The money is not yours but trust fund set up for their employee by Shell Petroleum Nigeria Ltd. What do you need all the billions for? Just like everybody, you will one day leave all no matter how hard you try.

These pensioners are old people. Some of them are pastors and prophets. You may not belief in God but God is always on the side of the oppressed. Remember Abacha. When Nigerians took their case to God, he saved them from the evil man.
Please give these senior citizens what is due to them and let them live the remaining part of their lives in relative peace.

Yours faithfully,
Olajumoke Ajayi.

Ps: Below are the two links that started the debate
www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-568480.0.html
www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-568482.0.html

Tobila got nearly all the facts but not all. I am an insider because I am one of the pensioners involved. When Adenuga bought the majority shares in National oil in 2000, the pensioners made the mistake in not letting the government know that there is a trust fund that is set up for the staff by shell Nig. Ltd. the former majority shareholder in the company. This trust fund is run independent of the company like a different company on its own. A percentage of the company profit before tax is paid into this fund every year. This fund at a point became so rich that it borrowed the parent company 1.5B when the then National oil was having financial trouble for which the company pledged the Eagle house as collateral. Adenuga transferred the building back to the company without paying the loan when he took over majority shares in the company. The fund had investment both in Nigeria and overseas companies. Its shares in Nigeria alone are worth almost 2 billion Naira. It is from the profit from these investments that pensions are paid

When the man called the bull came into National oil, he saw the over 2.6B in the fund and appropriated it as part of the company he bought. The pensioners instead of taking him to court at this time protested to El Rufai who did nothing. This is the point at which the pensioners should have taken Adenuga to court but they failed to do this. This emboldened him to cancel the 12% annual increment approved by shell which was about to be reviewed to 50% when Federal Government increased pensioners pay. This is why 70% of the pensioners on his payroll are still on N3600 and below.

Mike Adenuga is a wicked and greedy man. When he came into National Oil in 2000, he saw the whole staff he met there as thieves. I think it takes one to know one. The man is a bloody dictator. He treated the M.D of the company Mr. Ajimobi who is now by the grace of God the governor of Oyo State like an errand boy. Mr. Ajimobi used to complain bitterly about the man’s dictatorial attitude. We had to force him by downing tools before he agreed to pay the 25% salary increase that was approved by the management of the all the oil companies.

When we saw that he had no intension of improving the welfare of the pensioners or pay our yearly increment, we sacked our executives who were colluding with him and took him to court. Because the man knew the bad publicity the case would generate if it gets to the open court, he quickly opted to settle at the court without the case going to the open court. I told my fellow pensioners that you don’t negotiate with people like Adenuga. If you want to collect what belong to you from people like him: you force then to release it.

Three years after, our people have now come to realize how wrong they were. The man agreed to pay only N1.033B out of the N2.6B remaining in the fund. There is no justification for this. He did this because he knew our people were desperate because many of us are above 70 years old. Adenuga had no respect for anybody or group as long as it is not a source to make money.

At a point we reported him to the then Awujale of Ijebu-Ode who was his uncle. He was so furious he threatened to stop the pension for which we told him to go ahead because we knew he had no power to do this. He sacked all the staff he met on ground in National Oil for the simple fact that we had two unions over which he had no control. When Awujale reprimanded him for treating old people the way he was doing he became furious.

The N1.033B he agreed to pay was agreed in January after over 3 years of insipid negotiations. We had to sign individual agreement that we will not take him to court after he must have us paid us his miserable N1.033B. Since then he has not even release the money. 15 pensioners died after we signed the agreement. We have now decided to do what we should have done before: take the man to court where Nigerians will know the kind of greedy man Adenuga is. We will wash his dirty clothes in the open court and we will expose all his dark secrets in public. I am not afraid of him because I have God on my side. The current chairman ran out of Lagos because of incessant threatening mails. I will not do this because I am not afraid of who can kill the body and not the soul. By the time this case is settled people will know the kind of man Mike Adenuga Jr is.

Una no kill me with Laugh