Centenary Cesspool: Big Challenge to Jonathan
When it rains, it pours; so the saying goes. It is really pouring for President Goodluck Jonathan. At a time when his Coordinating Minister of the Economy (CME), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is being taken to task over the management of the economy and missing trillions, the Secretary of the Government of the Federation, (SGF) Senator Anyim Pius Anyim has come under fire. For the President's men, it is a case of different strokes for different folks. Because, while Okonjo-Iweala is being accused of supervising the loss of oil money by the cerebral Prof. Charles Soludo, the SGF, Anyim is being accused of creating a cesspool of corruption through the Centenary City project.
It is left to be seen how the President grapples with these weighty issues at a time when he is confronted with an acid re-election battle. The CME's troubles could be taken as the collateral burden of her sensitive and omnibus portfolio. This may not be so for the SGF for whom his accusers have given President Jonathan an ultimatum to remove from office. They seem to be emboldened by the President's declaration that he would never condone corruption. So, having dotted their 'I's and crossed their 'T's and coming to the conclusion that a case of corruption circulates around Senator Anyim, Comrade Timi Frank and his team decided to pose the challenge to President Jonathan.
Unlike the former Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN) Governor, Prof. Soludo, who wrote so long a letter chronicling what he considers the shortcomings of Madam Okonjo-Iweala, the SGF's accusers took out full page advertorials in some major national dailies including ThisDay and Leadership to expose his sins. In the advertorials he personally signed, Comrade Frank describes himself as a “patriotic Nigerian citizens who is passionate about our country's socio-political stability and economic prosperity”. He declared that Senator Anyim deceived the President into approving the Centenary City as a free zone when in fact it was his private company.
The worrisome aspects of the contents of the advertorials that appeared in Thisday, Leadership newspapers of February 2, 2015, were the claim by the author that Senator Anyim used two women, Esther Onoji and Jennifer Onah as his fronts by listing them as the only subscribers and shareholders in Centenary City Plc. Timi Frank wondered why of all the persons listed as Directors of Centenary City Plc including: Mr. George Marks of Julius Berger Plc, Abdulsalam Abubakar, Adetokumbo Kayode, Cletus Ibeto and others, none is allocated any shares in the company except the two obscure ladies.
The advertiser also stated: “My preliminary investigation reveals that a lot of secrecy was built around the Centenary City project in a well-planned effort to rip off the country. For instance, though the SGF, Anyim Pius Anyim, has repeatedly claimed that the Centenary City project is a Public Private Partnership (PPP) enterprise, facts on the ground are in sharp contrast to this claim. As we write this, there is no evidence of public sector participation in the venture because Centenary City Plc is a property of Company First Limited and Basic Start Limited. Curiously, both the Company First Limited and Basic Start Limited have the same office address at 17A Wumego Crescent, Off Christ Avenue, Lekki, Phase 1, Lagos same as Centenary City Plc itself. And while Company First Limited is represented by Esther Onoji as Director, Basic Start Limited is represented by Jennifer Onah”. He asserted that both Company First Limited and Basic Start Limited were incorporated the same day: September 18, 2009 adding that both companies had their original directors and shareholders changed. He said it is strange that the companies had same secretaries and office addresses even as he wondered why even Centenary City should share its registered office address in Lagos with the two companies.
The group disclosed that despite the fact that Centenary City was not registered or described as a Free Zone at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), it is represented to the public as one. “Investigations revealed that the Board of Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) maintains that no application was received to that effect and that the Centenary City does not even qualify as a Free Zone,” the group asserted. They therefore added: “Your Excellency, kindly note also, that if the Centenary City were a Free Zone, its Certificate of Occupancy would be in the custody of NEPZA as the agent of the Federal Government but this is not the case as the C of O is currently in private hands”.
Timi Frank and his group seem to have done an in depth work in their research. For instance, they informed President Jonathan as follows: “meanwhile, the said C of O has been used as collateral to obtain huge loans. On top of these, both the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN) disclosed that no foreign investment has been received by the Centenary City project”. They therefore concluded that the two dormant companies were simply resuscitated by the SGF to perfect the perpetration of fraud under the pretext of acting for the Federal Government. “It is starkly clear that the intendment of the promoters of the millennium fraud is to give waivers to the owners of the Centenary City through the back door by certifying the Centenary City as a Free Zone to the economic disadvantage of Nigeria,” they added.
The group reminded President Jonathan that “corruption has remained a gargantuan cancer eating into the very fabric of our nation's economic and political life to the extent that it continues to dominate national and international discourse”. They regretted that “most of the time, allegations of graft against officials of your administration are perceived to be treated as spurious and or machinations of political rivals” and demanded that Senator Anyim be asked to step aside from office as the SGF immediately “to pave way for full, comprehensive and unhindered official enquiry into the Centenary City Scam”.
They alleged that in a bid to effectively cover up the sleazy deal, the SGF ensured that the file of Centenary City Plc remains isolated in strict secrecy under the exclusive care of the Registrar-General of the CAC so that further searches could not be made into it. While Timi Frank stated that the hiding of the file confirmed his worst fears, he contended that if indeed the project was a PPP enterprise, public of access into details of its operation should be taken for granted.
Quoting the Executive Director of Eagles Hill, Mr. Jaimal Shergil, the developer of the Centenary City; Timi Frank pointed out that construction work has commenced on the first phase of the Abuja centenary city with a completion period of four years even as the entire project is envisaged to cost about $180.6 billion when completed in ten years' time. Alluding to a possible conspiracy, Frank wondered why Mr. Shergil should declare that the Centenary City would be exempted from federal and state taxes as well as Federal Capital Territory, (FCT) property tax. “So, who is fooling who; was this the original plan by the FCT administration and how do these developers intend to get their investment from this apparent scam?” he queried. Frank recalled that the FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, who explained that centenary city project, is expected to attract an investment of N3.2 trillion in the next ten years. Senator Mohammed, who made the clarification when he appeared before a House of Representatives Ad Hoc committee, had insisted that the project was to be implemented outside the Land Swap Framework. The Minister had also maintained that the Centenary City Project is being pursued through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, (SGF) and designed to commemorate 100 years of Nigeria's amalgamation. If indeed the project was envisioned as a business, leisure and tourism destination as Minister Mohammed stated, his explanation that the development of the city, which spans a land area of about 1, 200 hectares is 100 private sector-driven beggars belief. Again the FCT minister had disclosed that the proposed investors have formed a company, Centenary City Plc, with a Board of Directors under the Chairmanship of a former Head of State, General Abdusalami Abubakar (retd) while Sterling Partners and PriceWaterHouse Coopers were appointed by the company as its legal and financial partners. If the FCT Minister should be believed, it is left for his office and that of the SGF to explain who appointed the partners and whether the Board has met at all.
The SGF, Senator Anyim, had while assuring investors of good returns on their investment if they fund the project stated: “This meeting marks the beginning of the government's withdrawal from the centenary project and making the stage clear for decisions to be taken solely by the private sector investors themselves. We expect that the project would conform to international standards because we envisage that the stocks of the city would be quoted in the Nigeria Stock Exchange as well as other international markets....” Many people believe that this is a well thought out fleecing plan by the SGF.
It is not known however, whether the FCT Minister is part of the conspiracy. In addition to the sack of Anyim, other reliefs sought by Comrade Frank include revocation of the Certificate of Occupancy of the Centenary City Plc and withdrawal of the Free Zone status granted the Centenary City Plc. The group declared that “the sack of Senator Anyim, who is at the epicenter of this monumental graft, is the basic minimum starting point for dispassionate investigation and signal statement of your administration's determination to unravel the colossal fraud and evidence your commitment to the war against corruption.
The group also condemned the part played by Julius Berger Plc and George Marks in what it called the "fleecing of Nigeria" and called on the German government and the European Union to call the firm to order. They however threatened to mobilize patriotic Nigerians to fight the battle should the Federal government fail to address the issues. The group also warned local and foreign investors to suspended participation in the project. The question now before a stunned nation is whether President Jonathan would act or not. For now, Nigerians can only wait and watch.