In Nigeria and the United States of America, the activities of three friends very close to President Olusegun Obasanjo - Andrew Young and Carl Masters, both Afro-American founders of the USA-based Goodworks International, the public relations/lobbying firm retained by Obasanjo, and Hope Sullivan, Afro-American heiress to and Chief Executive Officer of the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation - come under critical scrutiny. Are they mere friends of the Nigerian president or business clones?
Nothing could have announced the bond between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Carlton Masters more than the sponsorship, by the former, of the elaborate ceremony, in Abuja, that wedded the latter to Hope Sullivan. Masters is the co-founder, with Andrew Young, of Goodworks International, an Atlanta, USA-based public relations and lobby firm, while the bride, now wife, is the daughter of the late Leon H. Sullivan, the African-American activist who created the Sullivan Foundation which sporadically organizes summits on African issues and problems. Hope is the incumbent president and Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation.
Obasanjo hosted the last two summits in 2003 and 2006. In between, on 16 July 2005, he joined the two Afro-Americans in marriage. Sponsorship of the wedding has been raising dust among Nigerian critics since it is believed there was no way public funds would not have been expended on what was not only a very private affair, it was also un-Nigerian. What is more worrisome is what is generally believed exists in a web of business deals between Obasanjo and the trio of Young, Masters and the Sullivans, not only in Nigeria, but even in the USA. The Obasanjo administration retains Goodworks to polish its image in the USA for an annual fee of $1.6 million, although Nigeria operates an embassy and two consulates there which can be effectively used for the PR purpose.
Last year, Masters was the unabashed chief organizer for a launch ceremony to raise $50 million for a library project conceived by Obasanjo, named after him and sited in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital and hometown of the president. Key players in the private sector, most of them very close friends to Obasanjo and promoters of his aborted third term dream, were compelled to donate hugely to the Presidential Library project. At the launch, on 14 May 2005, Otunba Mike Adenuga, Chairman of telecommunications firm, Globacom and Consolidated Oil, donated N250 million; Aliko Dangote, N211 million; Femi Otedola, N200 million and all the 26 state governors, N360 million. A consortium of unnamed banks put down N622 million; the Nigerian Ports Authority, $1 million; Ocean and Oil, N50 million; the People’s Democratic Party to which Obasanjo belongs, N25 million; Chief Sunny Odogwu, N200 million; Alhaji Arisekola Alao, N100 million; Chief Michael Ibru, N50 million; Ascon Oil, N40 million; the Ogun State government, N100 million and the Ooni of Ife, N10 million. Obasanjo Holdings, owned by the president himself, donated N100 million.
Popular lawyer and human rights activist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, is still in court challenging the legality and morality of the donations, the sources of which were never questioned by the Obasanjo administration and its watchdog on corruption, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Ironically, the largest single donor to the project, Adenuga, was last month arrested by the EFCC for offences the Commission would not clarify although allegation of money laundering was rife. Questions are still being asked who the donation managers are. Judging by the heavy involvement of Masters in the library project, Goodworks International are not being ruled out of the role.
In the US, Goodworks and Young specifically are being taken to the cleaners. In newspaper features and radio programs, the image of Young as a defender of the rights of blacks and the oppressed is being revisited.
Hope Masters with Young are the only members of the “Leadership” of the Foundation, while there is the ceremonial list of board members. The list includes big names, one of whom is former President Bill Clinton. In every function organized by the Foundation, Masters, even though not formally listed on the website as a member of the Leadership, actually is the Secretary to the board. The relationship between Obasanjo and his Goodworks International friends seems to overshadow whatever it is the Foundation is supposed to be doing. Concerned observers still wonder why Obasanjo had to host another summit consecutively when there were other venues outside Nigeria that could do it.
Critics accuse leaders of the Foundation to be paying lip-service to the principles of self-help, social responsibility, economic empowerment and human rights – principles Rev. Sullivan espoused. Today, it is alleged, the reverend’s heirs are more interested in feathering their own nests, in concert with leaders and corporate bodies in Africa. Rather than championing corporate responsibility in Africa, they are accused; they’re actually exploiting its absence. Eyebrows are being raised on the millions of dollars they were believed to have received in donations from Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Chrome Petroleum, Sea Petroleum while the Niger-Delta burns and the environment there is destroyed by callous oil exploitation. According to reports, Shell donated $200,000, Chevron $700,000, Exxon-Mobil $64,000, Chrome Petroleum $125,000 and Sea Petroleum $125,000.
Young is accused of cashing in on his stature as an icon of the civil rights movement, a former mayor of Atlanta in the USA, an ambassador and a recognised elder in the African-American community, while the Sullivan heirs are exploiting the unblemished reputation of their patriarch, Leon H. Sullivan. A dust of disdain trailed the first job that catapulted Goodworks International into big-time contracts in 1997. At a time when the world was waking up to the appalling atrocities being committed by Nike in its Asian shoe factories, Young and Masters took the Nike commission to burnish their image. Young produced a 75-page full color report on Nike’s Asian operations. He concluded that there was “no evidence or pattern of widespread of systematic abuse or mistreatment of workers” in the 12 operations he examined. His report was filled up with pages of doctored pictures of smiling, ostensibly happy workers. But a few weeks after, reputable accounting firm, Ernst and Young, visited some of the same places Young claimed to have visited and put a lie to his report by detailing the unsafe, terrible and sub-human conditions under which the people work.
In February this year, Goodworks International was enmeshed in another controversial job with the announcement that Young was chairing the Working Families for Wal-Mart. The world’s largest retailers has been battling with a sordid reputation of oppression among women and minorities and the appointment of Young, the African-American civil rights icon, was designed to accord it some respect. In fact, Wal-Mart proudly announced they were funding Young and Goodworks International, because they belong to a group of people “who understand and appreciate Wal-Mart’s positive impact on working families in America.” Critics are still berating Young and Goodworks International for what is described as their insincerity to the allegation that Wal-Mart discriminates against minorities and women and pay poverty-level wages.
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