Making my observations from afar, I can quickly count a number of hitherto thriving entities within the Od’ua Investment Company group that have either gone comatose or completely dead.
Epe Plywood Factory, Nigerian Wire and Cable and Askar Paints are all now referred to in the past and this is despite the essential nature of the goods and services they were in the business of producing.
It is easy to give the excuse that the Nigerian business environment is tough but there are numerous private entities surviving and returning good dividends to their owners. Many other competing outfits within and outside Nigeria continue to thrive relying entirely on the Nigerian market.
The Nigeria NLG has been recently in the news for having provided billions as bailout packages to the Federation Account. Companies under the Dangote group are expanding to various parts of the world and making Aliko Dangote one of the richest men on earth.
Yet, OIC Limited is as helpless as its owners in a moment like this when it should be providing financial succour to its owners who are unable to pay staff salaries and also providing much needed employment to the descendants of O’dua.
Incompetence, nepotism, corruption and red-tapism are alleged to be the Archiles heels. Inside O’dua, life moves rather slowly, decisions take almost forever to make. The axiom ‘time is money’ means nothing here.
Sketch group of newspapers was a thriving concern when it was handed over to O’dua to manage around the mid 1990s. It was run aground not long after.
On October 24, 2013, the then Group Managing Director, Odua Investment, Adebayo Jimoh announced plans by the group to resuscitate the comatose Sketch.
He added that O’dua was already in discussion with intending partners who have shown interest in taking up Sketch’s patent.
“The rebirth of the paper will be announced soon”, he declared.
Also shortly after his farewell visit to Governor Ibikunle Amosun in Abeokuta, Jimoh told reporters that O’dua was working with a group of senior journalists in the bid to bring back one of the Yoruba legacies alive. This heightened popular expectations.
It would seem a surprise that the announcement on Sketch generated such interest in an age where many mass media outlets are doing rather badly in the market and payment of salaries is a big issue.
Online media and blogs have taken over and readers get information without paying for newspapers. But Sketch is more than mere newspaper to the O’dua nation. It is nostalgia. It ia about a golden era that many would wish returned.
Such old names like Peter Ajayi, Felix Adenaike, Olusegun Osoba, Sola Oyegbemi, Ademola Idowu just to mention a handful are some of the media colossus that passed through Daily Sketch. It was said that at a point in its history, the owner governments relied on profit from the newspaper group to pay salaries.
Also at a point in time when employment is a huge issue in the South West Nigeria, many had thought that O’dua Group and its owner states would consider it a god-sent for private businessmen to express interest in such gesture with the potential to boost employment generation and increase enlightenment.
Alas! nothing else happened until mid 2014 when news filtered that O’dua had entered an agreement with a private media outfit to re-package the legacy entity with privately sourced funds.
Unfortunately, there was a change in management at O’dua and the process was forced to start all over despite the millions already expended by the private investors.
Another round of due diligence was conducted after which it was learned that there was all-round satisfaction. There were also reports that the newspapers were likely to hit the newsstands by mid 2015.
Now we hear that after several meetings and decisions reached since August, Od’ua management is again at its evasive, snail speed-foot dragging best in giving the final go-ahead. Inside sources are hinting and an ugly development on the issue. May be OICL management is not aware that a lot of people are insinuating that the foot-dragging is because the investors have not greased some dirty palms.
It was also alleged that some individuals are deliberately putting spanner in the works despite the heavy investments that the investors have made for some illegal reasons.
Inside sources disclosed that at a meeting in August, representatives of both parties agreed to a timetable on the series of events that will lead to publications. Even then, the renewed timetable is now a mess as the agreements scheduled to have been signed in the middle of September is still on hold with no sign that anything positive will happen soon.
The question now is since O’dua is not contributing a dime to the planned resuscitation but will rather earn royalty and rent in addition to providing the much needed jobs in the region, why is the management foot dragging on the issue?
Is it this lackadaisical attitude that led to the downswing in business operations of O’dua with most of its hitherto thriving business nose diving?
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