Date Published: 04/28/09

Femi Otedola in fresh trouble over N1bn donation to PDP

Femi Otedola, Chairman/CEO Zenon Petroleum

As the dust raised by the allegation that the embattled chairman and CEO of Zenon Petroleum and Gas, Mr. Femi Otedola scammed shareholders by manipulating the share price of African Petroleum (AP) “to get into the Forbes’ billionaire’s list” is yet to settle, officials of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are reportedly pestering the oil tycoon to redeem a N1 billion pledge he made to their party, last year.

At the fundraising dinner for a new party secretariat, last year, Otedola had caused a stir by announcing a donation of N1billion towards the project, tipping the scales as the single largest donor at the event, which was attended by high profile PDP members, including Vice President Goodluck Jonathan.

But Pointblanknews.com investigations reveal that, close to six months after making what some PDP officials consider “an ear-tingling donation,” the young businessman is yet to redeem a single penny of his pledge, greatly unsettling the party officials.

Said a party official who for obvious reasons did not want to be quoted, “We are considering appealing to Mr. President or Mr. Vice President to help beg Mr. Otedola to redeem part, if not all, of his N1 billion pledge to the party. We have waited in vain for months and we need to begin work on the project. And to do this, we need to determine how much we have, and that is why we need to know if people like Otedola are serious or merely pulled wool over our eyes.”

A source close to the embattled oil tycoon however told Pointblanknews.com that PDP officials may have to wait a little longer. This source said he had sufficient reasons to believe that Otedola may have made the pledge more out of political expediency than financial reality.

Pressed, the source explained that Otedola may have made the pledge to upset his business rival and colleague in the Forbes list of billionaires, Alhaji Aliko Dangote whom the source explained “eventually disappointed Femi (Otedola) by making a realist pledge of providing all the cement for the project.”

He said, “My brother, N1 billion is a lot of money converted into any currency. Femi, who was the first make his donation, in my reckoning, had sought to spite Dangote with the N1 billion donation. Unknown to him, Dangote is a shrewd man who built his business empire over the decades though consistency and hard work. When Dangote announced his cement donation to the project, the move threw Otedola off balance. I can confirm to you that he is yet to recover from that shockwave ,” adding, “even (President) Yar’Adua and his vice donated N527,205 and N454,735, representing 15% of  their basic salaries respectively.”

He continued:“Given that the proposed PDP national secretariat is not expected to gulp up to 20 trailers of cement, Dangote’s contribution, in monetary terms, may end up not being worth more than N30 million or even less. So, you can see how a cold war between two billionaires made Otedola shoot himself in the foot. And with the PDP people breathing down his neck, he is now left to nurse the big, festering sore.

“In the first instance, the PDP national secretariat is expected to gulp N10 billion. For Otedola to have talked of giving N1 billion implied that he was shouldering 10% of the total cost. Otedola did not ask himself how much the 28 governors, including those from the oil-rich states, elected on the PDP platform donated. Pray, he is not known to have a governorship ambition, so, apart from bitter rivalry, one wonders what he stood to gain from such a ludicrous donation,” the source added.

The source added that it was the same rivalry that led Otedola to announce last year that Nigerians should watch out for “Otedola High Quality Cement.”

He unfurled: “You remember Otedola bought ‘wrap around’ adverts in several major Nigerian newspapers, last year, to announce the grand entry of his cement into the Nigerian market. Some even joked at the time that the money spent on the adverts could have as well built him a small cement factory.

“Today, nobody, not even those newspapers, are asking the young man where his cement is. The empty sacks, to the best of my knowledge, have not even hit the Nigerian market, as we speak. You don’t do business on whims. Business stems from ideas, not idiosyncrasies,” he stressed.

The source explained that it was a related motive that drove the duo of Ibeto and Bua to challenge what they considered the Dangote monopoly of the cement business in Nigeria.

He quizzed: “What became of Ibeto cement? He had boasted that, with Obasanjo out of the way, and six months into production, he would crash the price of cement in Nigeria. Ibeto has been producing over a year now, but how many bags of Ibeto cement can you find in the market and at what price?

“We hear Bua’s AbdulSalman Rabiu, who also set out to rival Dangote with a 10,000 metric tonne per day floating plant, is now begging the same man to buy off his ship loads of cement so as to offset the millions pilling up in demurrage. But, trust Dangote. The business tycoon is taking his time. One just hopes Bua does not go bankrupt before Dangote finishes making up his mind,” added the source.