By Ben Ekori
Over the past few weeks, there has been a well-orchestrated campaign of calumny against the Chief Financial Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd), Mr. Dapo Segun, by persons and groups masquerading as civil rights activist and anti-corruption crusaders. They started with press statements calling for the investigation and arrest of Segun over his role in the failed refinery rehabilitation exercise. When that failed to achieve their evil desire of tainting the man’s image, they changed their modus operandi to organizing protest rallies to drive home their demands. Upon the failure of that strategy, they have moved on to the next level of instituting a law suit to compel the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate and arrest Segun.
On a superficial level, the campaign appears to be a crusade against corruption and a call for probity in the society. But a closer look at the people behind the groups and the narratives they have put forward for their actions would reveal a motley of mendacious hirelings carrying out the bidding of a master who is driven by motiveless malignity to either pull him down or force him to acquiesce to their evil game of blackmail.
Bereft of concrete facts, the organizers of the campaign under various aegis such as Forum of Forensic Investigation Lawyers have come up with narratives insinuating that Segun was being shielded from investigation and arrest because of his ethnic affiliations, and that as the man who supervised the refinery rehabilitation exercise as Executive Vice President, Downstream, he ought to be the main focus of investigative searchlight.
For a group that is purportedly made up of lawyers who have an interest in forensic investigation, it borders on idiocy for them to carry out a campaign of this sort without verifying their claims. For instance, they claim that Segun supervised the refinery rehabilitation exercise and NNPC’s acquisition of OVH. But it does not take any special investigative skill for anyone with even half a brain to know that the refinery rehabilitation kicked off in August 2021 with an 18-month period to complete the first phase which is the Old Port Harcourt Refinery. By the time Segun was appointed EVP Downstream in September 2023, the first phase was almost winding down. Therefore, to accuse him of awarding the contract and supervising the rehabilitation of the refinery is nothing short of delusion.
The other alleged crime for which the group wants the EFCC to investigate Segun is the acquisition of OVH. This is yet another example of fishing for an excuse to demonize the CFO. The Forum of Forensic Investigation Lawyers once again failed to bring their skills to bear on their jobs as they did not know that the OVH acquisition was concluded in October 2022, almost a full year before Segun was appointed as EVP Downstream in September 2023.
The EFCC has been investigating the refineries and all those who allegedly mismanaged the rehabilitation contract. There are reports about huge funds supposedly meant for the refinery rehabilitation found in the accounts of certain persons under the investigative radar of the anti-graft agency. That Segun’s name has not been mentioned in connection with that is because the EFCC investigators have not found anything incriminating on him or around the period he served as EVP Downstream. What these amoral groups really want to achieve by their latest gambit of going to court is to unnerve the CFO to the point that he would give in to their blackmail. But they would fail, just like they failed in their previous strategies. This is because the CFO maintains a clear conscience, and a clear conscience fears no accusation.
Ben Ekori, a social commentator and public affairs analyst, wrote this piece from Lagos.
