from Citizens Report
The attempt to snatch the management of multi-million naira NNPC mega station, located on Moshood Abiola Way within the sprawling Obasanjo Presidential Library complex, in Abeokuta, capital of Ogun state from Obasanjo Holdings, owned by former president Olusegun Obasanjo has ran into serious crisis.
Sources close to the NNPC said the dispute over the management contract of the station which is, no doubt, the biggest and most profitable petrol station in Abeokuta, has pitched Ogun state governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel against the former president.
Reports said Governor Daniel, who never hid his desire to control the station from inception, had capitalised on the discovery of about N93million irregularities in the accounts of the station under the management of Obasanjo Holdings by surreptitiously engineering NNPC officials to terminate their management agreement with Obasanjo Holdings and re-award same to one Idowu Togun who is the governor’s front.
Former president Olusegun Obasanjo, sources said was informed of the change of management while he was in far-away Jamaica. Upon investigation of the circumstances surrounding the change and the new management, it was discovered that the Ogun state governor had interest in the deal and that he had installed Idowu Togun, a staff of the state government as new owner-manager of the station thereby setting up a serious confrontation with the former president.
“This revelation,” according to a source close to Obasanjo Holdings “jolted Baba who felt stabbed by Daniel.” The former president was said to have visited the station upon arrival from Jamaica as part of his company’s efforts to regain the station.
The successes recorded by the station in just a few months of its operation bear eloquent testimony to its profitability. Unfortunately, the station which had proven to be a source of succour to motorists may have become the source of serious friction between the two most powerful citizens of the state: Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Governor Gbenga Daniel.
Sources close to Oke-Mosan said when management of the Mega Station was contracted to Obasanjo Holdings at the inception of the station, Governor Daniel did not seem to like such arrangement but the governor folded his arms, bidding his time while Obasanjo Holdings managed the station.
However, opportunity to strike came when NNPC and its joint venture partners discovered some irregularities of about N93million in the accounts of the station. Governor Daniel quickly moved in with the sledge hammer. He struck out Obasanjo Holdings, went round those who matter in the nation’s oil business and got his own management installed at the station.
Having successfully shunted Obasanjo Holdings aside from the lucrative station, the Governor’s strategists thereafter rubbed it in by advertising the competence of the new management to the chagrin of the managers at Obasanjo Holdings who felt such campaign was aimed at discrediting the former president.
The Governor’s media campaign portrayed Idowu Togun, one of the many special assistants of Governor Daniel, as a top Abeokuta businessman and a financial whiz kid who defeated 12 other bidders to win the contract for the management of the station. But Obasanjo Holdings sympathisers pooh-poohed such tall claims saying both EFCC and the Police have records of N60million that exchanged hands while change of the station management was being negotiated and that it had petitioned appropriate authorities in its bid to get its management contract restored.
A reliable source close to the management of Obasanjo Holdings said the Mega station was the brainchild of the controversial Obasanjo Presidential Library (OPL) ventures, a commercial arm of the presidential library project and it is meant to compliment the maintenance portfolio of the presidential library. The source confirmed that managers of Obasanjo Holdings have indeed begun the process of petitioning NNPC and may soon regain the rights of management of the station.
Though no one in NNPC was willing to confirm this but a source close to Idowu Togun, Governor Daniel’s points man at the Mega station said the Governor Daniel is determined to hold on to the station at all cost.
What however remains unclear is how the furore over the station has affected the relationship between Governor Daniel and the owner of Obasanjo Holdings, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who’s known to be Daniel’s main political godfather. Efforts to reach both the governor and the ex-president proved abortive as calls to their known cell phones were not picked.
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