By Ishola Kayode
Indigenous oil and gas company Selplat Energy, listed at both the London and Nigerian stock exchanges, spent $19.4 million (N16 bn) in legal fees to defend its CEO, Roger Brown, who was accused of racism and treating Nigerian staff of the company with contempt.
The company spent the money in 4 months, and there was no transparent breakdown of how the money was spent or how much was actually paid to the lawyers who handled the brief on behalf of the company.
The Seplat board is badly divided and factionalized. One faction is loyal to ABC Orjiakor and Austin Avuru, the two co-founders of the company who have stepped down from the board.
Another faction is led by the CEO of the company, Roger Brown.
This faction is loyal to Basil Omiyi, a former CEO of Shell and the current chairman of the Seplat board.
The ABC Orjiakor faction of the company wants Roger Brown to go.
The matter spilled to the court a few months ago where they accused the Scottish-born CEO of the company of being racist, and they used their influence in Abuja to get the former minister of interior, Rauf Aregebesola, to revoke Brown’s visa and the residence permit authorizing his stay in Nigeria.
But the Basil Omiyi faction of the company fought back. It was in Brown’s racist court case that Seplat allegedly spent 16 billion naira hiring lawyers.
Meanwhile, angry shareholders of the company loyal to ABC Orjiakor are not allowing the grass grow under their feet.
They are demanding explanations as to how N16 bn could have been spent on hiring lawyers in 4 months and insisting to know the lawyers who received these funds.
But Basil Omiyi’s faction is calling the bluff of the shareholders. They insist that Roger is doing a good job, so spending N16 bn to defend him was money well spent.
Already, it was alleged by the ABC Orjiajor camp that Roger Brown has bought the loyalty of the board chairman by paying him a whopping compensation of $750,000 yearly for sitting allowances as the chairman of the company.
He also allegedly extended other perks, like buying expensive luxury cars for the chairman, according to the ABC Orjiajor camp.
His cars and the diesel he is using in his house in VGC Lagos are being paid for by Seplat, according to ABC Orjiajor people, and there is this unproven allegation by his camp that a new house, paid for by Seplat, was bought by Roger Brown for the chairman in Abuja.
From TND checks, Seplat has not always been this divided.
What then happened that planted this bad blood between the two factions fighting for the soul of the company?
TND gathered that the infighting started when Roger Brown assumed office and was so daring and bold as to remove some perks being enjoyed by ABC Orjiajor and his co-founder, Austin Avuru.
One of the perks he allegedly removed was preventing their wives from supplying Christmas hampers to Seplat, seen as a very lucrative contract.
But ABC Orjiajor who was amused at the development decided to strike back by going for the kill.
ABC Orjikaor reportedly demanded nothing but the head of Roger Brown which means that Brown must be sacked by the board and told to go back to his country.
Sensing the danger and forces coming to him, Roger Brown ran to his friend, the current chairman of the company, Basil Omiyi, for help against the impending loaded forces coming for his head for doing the unthinkable.
Basil offered the protection as a way of solidifying his clout in the company. But Basil wasn’t the energy organisation’s founder.
Austin and ABC founded Seplat, so he apparently needs to flex his muscles as the chairman of the company.
Seeing that they won’t be able to get the support from the board that they need to sack Roger Brown
The case of racism was instituted against Roger Brown, and his residence permit visa was revoked overnight, which means that he had to leave the country and go back to his home country, Scotland.
ABC Orjiakor did not see the next move from Basil Omiyi’s camp coming.
The news went out that Orjiakor had been sacked from the contractual Agreement between the Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary and its co-founder, Dr. A.B.C. Orjiako, acting through Amaze Limited.
“Under the Consultancy Agreement, Dr. Orjiako was obliged to provide defined assistance with certain external stakeholder engagements following his retirement from the Board after the 2022 Annual General Meeting in May 2022.”
Tracking back, ABC Orjiakor was appointed as a lobbyist after he stepped down from the board of Seplat, and as a lobbyist, he was empowered to lobby the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and regulators on behalf of Seplat, and he was expected handsomely for that service.
That was what was cancelled by the Basil Omiyi-led board, which fired back after the revocation of the CEO’s visa. The CEO who is loyal to him.
Brown Rogers is back in Nigeria, and his residence permit has been restored, but the fight between the two camps over this new drama of 16 billion naira spent on Roger Brown’s case in court shows that the fight for the soul of the company is not abating soon.
