By Funke EGBEMODE
(egbemode3@gmail.com)
I like laws but not very much. Nigeria has too many laws, all kinds of laws, really, including the ones that arrest goats and sheep if they stray into the streets. Do you see any of them being obeyed by your governor or his Local Government Chairmen and Councillors? What about the law that says if a man who married according to the laws of the land takes a new and second wife, he could go to jail because bigamy is a criminal enterprise? Well, Nigerian men have sneered at the bigamy law and are now full-time polygamists, law be damned.
So, each time, there is a policy, appointment, etc. that is attracting the ‘learned fellows’ and silk wigs, I get all suspicious and lower my glasses further down the bridge of my nose. Once those guys start adjusting their wigs and threatening to approach the Supreme Court for interpretation, I drag their papers to a corner and search out how and where their arguments benefit the ordinary you and I.
They never disappoint, especially when they mix law and politics in the same pot, the ladle is always suspicious. This time as soon as they started mouthing phrases like Rule of Law and Code of Conduct Bureau, I paused the Korean series, ‘Crash Landing on You’ that I was watching on Netflix. Who are they throwing the books at this time? Senator Abdulaziz Yari. Okay, if a politician is being dragged by a politician, what is my own? They deserve one another. I hid a smile as I returned to see how Yoon Seri would survive the North Korean winter night and make it to the South Korean border. Then I heard N1.08 trillion and Femi Otedola’s name. I became interested.
So what is the full story?
Businessman Femi Otedola had decided to divest his 77% stake in Geregu Power Plant, going home with more than N1trillion. Senator Yari, even I did not know he was that rich, decided to grab 25% of what was on display and before you could say Up NEPA, the Senator became the Chairman of Geregu Power Plc. The ownership transfer was finalised in December 2025. Geregu Plant contributes about 12% to the national grid. Its stock is doing well, averaging N20billion in annual dividends.
The bone of contention is should a serving Senator be Board Chairman of a publicly quoted company? The law and lawyers are at each other’s throats.
Did Yari make his money in Nigeria and is keeping it in Nigeria? Yes.
That should count for something.
Do we want our politicians to have second and third addresses?
Definitely.
If all they have is politics, do-or-die will not die, and it must die.
Would the code of this and that and the lawyers have preferred that foreigners had picked up that 25% somehow instead of a Nigerian? Would a failed or a failing enterprise work better with our codes of conduct than where a Nigerian plows back money he made in Nigeria to create jobs for more Nigerians in Nigeria? Come to think of it, Senator Yari could have done all this buying under the table, through a proxy without showing his face or hands? Is it not better that we can now put a face to the success or failure of Geregu? If the share price descends from N1,141.50 that it was yesterday, at least we know a serving senator on the board to hold and berate.
Wait o, could it be the fear of these laws and codes that prevented certain Nigerians from buying stakes in all those companies that have since left Nigeria, and the ones that are on life support? We need to dig up some graves and make the dead walk like James Hardly Chase once prescribed. Laws and codes are good and needed but when they get in the way of simple solutions, they make me wonder if laws are made for man or man made for laws.
