Busted: The lies against FRC and its Executive Secretary

 

By Istifanus Isah

Some faceless but powerful persons recently launched a campaign of calumny against the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, FRC, and in particular, its Executive Secretary/CEO, Jim Obazee. Their aim is to rubbish the integrity of Obazee and put FRC into disrepute.

As you may well know, FRC is the government agency with the statutory mandate to set accounting standards for both public and private corporate entities in order to ensure probity, accountability and transparency in both the public and private sectors of the Nigerian economy.

And it is clear that corrupt top government officials who are hell-bent on looting public funds do not want FRC to do its noble job. The so-called allegations which one online newspaper called The Will recently published against FRC and its chief executive, Jim Obazee move from the ridiculous, to the laughable to the outright stupid!

Let’s look at the The Will leaking basket of spurious allegations one by one. The title says Busted: Jim Obazee and His Tainted FRC. It gave us the impression that it was going to be typical James Bond block buster movie but it turned out to be a miserable Somali pirate act. Simply laughable. The Will wrote that Obazee a chief executive of a government agency collected N150,000 as travelling expenses. Meanwhile, the government circular on such expenses says anybody in his position is entitled to N150,000! The Will said he spent N82,500 as hotel expenses at Abuja .Please, everyone knows what the rates are at hotels such as  Sheraton or Transcorp Hilton or Protea.

Then, The Will and its paymasters tell us that Obazee was used by former president Jonathan to oust former Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi. Please the former CBN governor who everyone knows to be very vocal never told us that. Sanusi (now Emir of Kano) never made that claim. One, the then President had the executive powers in consultation with the Senate to remove the CBN governor so he did not need to use anybody to remove anybody. Second, the query raised by the Financial Reporting Council on the account of the CBN at that time was a professional one, which demanded a professional response.

Not running to the Press. Look at the cold, hard figures, simple! The CBN had been examining the accounts of the country’s commercial banks and telling us which ones were doing well and those who cooked their books! So, why should not the CBN accounts be audited? It was a case of physician heal thyself!

Then, The Will flew another kite.  It screamed. Aso Rock is under pressure to fire Obazee. Please, who is Aso Rock? The only people we know who are under any pressure are the rogues in government who are afraid of Obazee and FRC. ‘Yee, yee’ they have been crying, ’This boy, Obazee will finish us oh, with his new National Code of Corporate Governance. We must fight him back.’

Let’s make it clear neither the rock at Aso nor our President is under any pressure as regards Obazee. The President is indeed, well pleased with the performance of Obazee at FRC. Period.

That is why they have come to plant their janjeweed in the media. But it will not work.

Next, the paymasters of The Will claim that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC is reviewing multiples of petitions against Obazee “who is being accused of using proxies and phoney consultants to siphon tens of millions of naira from FRC” Very, very laughable. In the first place, the FRC does NOT receive funding from government. So, where are the tens of millions of naira?

Who sent petitions to EFCC? Well, we have asked the EFCC and it says there are NO petitions against the FRC or Obazee. Except The Will and its paymasters want to manufacture one as they are doing on their janjeweed online site.

Now to the house that Obazee purportedly owns in the US. According to even the purportedly document published by The Will the house or actually an apartment is owned by another Nigerian, Victor Omosigho. The owner bought the house in 2012, then due to personal challenges he asked Obazee to act on his behalf in respect of the house in 2014.Then,Omosigho retook possession of the house the following year,2015.The records are clear. Moreover, the house/apartment is only worth US$82,500,which is under US$ 100,000.

Please do find out, such houses are for lower middle class or the poor. Even students buy such houses/apartments and take a little mortgage to gradually offset the cost of the house. So, laughable.  It is not even a US$ one million mansion! And of course, it does not belong to Obazee. These naysayers will have to try very, very hard to find any dirt to dig up around Obazee! Pity.

Next episode of lies from The Will and company: “The EFCC has been asked to investigate the N1billion International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Academy fund as well as over N225 million wastefully expended for the printing of FRC registration certificates for use by the agency for the next two decades through proxies fronting as contractors.”

The lies here are so mindboggling that you will simply laugh rather than cry. The truth is that there was NEVER any N1billion naira earmarked, budgeted, disbursed, or allocated for the proposed IFRS Academy. The “N1billion” only exists in the distorted evil minds of The Will publisher and his paymasters. The money received for the academy is less than N100 million and this money is currently domiciled in a fixed account and in government treasury bills.

I hope The Will is getting its own money ready to pay for libel and defamation of character pretty soon. Please The Will hold firm to your paymasters because you will need them when the heat is on you.

So, FRC can print forms “to be used for the next two decades?” There must be some element of insanity in the writers of this garbage. Can the whole office of the FRC which is on one floor of a rented office building in Ikeja, Lagos even be able to contain these forms that can be used for two decades? I think the quack writers at The Will need to check into the Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos or another popular one, the Aro Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Abeokuta.

Where will FRC get N225 million to spend on such a nonsensical venture?

The Will says” Obazee has a taste for luxury cars.” Am wondering how his taste buds relate to his work at FRC? If a man has worked hard and has got to the top of his career through hard work and the grace of Almighty God, he deserves to have good taste buds! He may be graciously allowed to drink good wine if he so wishes. The Mercedes Benz in question was a status car bought by the FRC for Obazee (who was then executive director) and another status car (not Mercedes) for his former boss, Mr Nnadi in 2009. It was not bought by Obazee for himself. The board of FRC, then known as NASB, with Nnadi as chief executive approved and financed the purchase of the two official cars.

The Porsche car in question is a used, old model car which he bought from his friend, who is a US car dealer. So, there is no concrete evidence that he lived above his means as The Will labours hard to convince us. Sorry, The Will if the evidence was there we would see it, you don’t have to go through childbirth to convince us.

One will not be far from the truth if one concludes that in their lust for quick money, the editors of The Will have thrown away the ethics and professionalism of the journalism profession. A key tenet of journalism says that there are at least two sides to a story. The Will NEVER approached either the FRC or Obazee to verify the concocted allegations which it published. It is had done so, the spurious allegations would have been torn apart by the truth backed by documented evidence at FRC. But then, how will The Will get its filthy pay?

The problem of the powerful paymasters who are using The Will and a few other media is the fear of the new National Code of Corporate Governance recently launched by FRC through the tireless work of Obazee and his team of dedicated staff. The fear of the powerful bootleggers in government is how can we steal easily with this new code? We must stop it.

Nigerians, should we allow them? No.