Utomi claimed he had never done business with the administration of Ogun State.
Ibikunle Amosun has come under fire from economist Pat Utomi for allegedly being placed on a blacklist by the Ogun State House of Assembly prior to his appointment as the state’s governor.
Utomi refuted having any commercial dealings with the Ogun State government that would have made him eligible for a blacklist during his appearance as a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday.
Why would I have been placed on a blacklist, he asked? Ogun and I have never done business in a way that would have caused them to put me on a whitelist, let alone a blacklist.
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I don’t conduct any business at all with state governments due to policy reasons. The sole occasion where it would become essential in the context of land issues, as the government in Nigeria is the only entity with jurisdiction over land issues.
Why was I put on a blacklist by the House of Assembly? For what reason? It was the first time I had ever transacted business with Ogun State.
I was shocked to hear that for the first time in my life and it makes me wonder how public officials can accuse me of such ridiculous things. For what reason, if any, was I placed on a blacklist?
In response to Utomi’s claim that he had broken the terms of the contract with respect to the canceled agreement with the Chinese company Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Limited, Amosun called the professor “entitled.’
Before he did, Amosun was answering Utomi’s claim about a shelved Ogun agriculture-related project taken up residence in office.
But in response, Utomi stated on Monday that he has never done business with the administration of Ogun State.
Utomi continued her speech by criticizing Nigeria for having a ‘unnecessary’ jet fleet and stating that the planes were seized.
Sincerely, I had no idea what caused the seizure when I initially learned about it.
We’ve done it again, I thought to myself. Because I was upset, I wondered why Nigeria had such a large fleet and whether there really was a need for a presidential fleet.
‘Presidential fleets are not present in many nations that are significantly wealthy than Nigeria.
Generally speaking, the British, from whom we acquired our modern-day knowledge of statecraft, don’t have A prime minister’s plane. For work-related travel, the prime minister rents a plane.
‘That’s why we would put ourselves in such an embarrassing situation, that was my initial thought.’
For a long time, I have been issuing warnings about this.
Nigeria suffers greatly as a result of the governors of several sub-nationals acting so recklessly when entering into and exiting agreements with foreign organizations.
Since many companies believe Nigeria’s institutions are untrustworthy, many of them will not open branches there.
Because Nigeria is unable to provide them with justice and because boundaries are unclear, they believe.
‘In many state governments, when a governor steps down, the next one takes over and, without considering the needs of the implications for the nation and his state in terms of how seriously the international community views them.’
I therefore made the decision to draw attention to my own experience, which occurred precisely as the event that resulted in the presidential jets being seized, after realizing that this was the general pattern.
Numerous businessmen have experienced this, but they choose to lick their wounds and go on since they lack the funds to file an arbitration request with an international court.
‘Ogun State is not the only example. I said that I recently had a book published. Several case studies that I published are included in the book.
One of the incidents involved the exact actions taken in a different Nigerian state that resulted in a foreign business in South Africa, departing the nation, which resulted in enormous losses since the governor chose to engage in shady activities following his resignation.
I was informed that the former governor of Ogun State had thoughts critical of me after I made the comments.
And it struck me then that this is just another major issue facing Nigeria: many who have held public office lack the self-control to tell plain, straightforward realities in polite company.
I have only ever done business with Ogun State once, and that was when we were working on a project to create an agricultural value chain.
