Fighting the Battle of his LIFE:
I am Not CORRUPT, EFCC can fully investigate me…My Hands are Clean-BAYO ONANUGA, MD/CEO, News Agency of Nigeria
…May pursue libel court case against petitioners
* ‘ On my first day at NAN darkness was everywhere, I provided N250,000 of my own money to the Technical Department to buy diesel and decreed that on no account must the agency be in darkness from 8am till 8pm daily’
* ‘Illegal NAN labor unions out to ruin my hard-earned reputation’
* ‘I created three websites with less than N1.7m and paid less than N2m, about $5,000 every year for hosting at pagely.com’
* ‘We want Secretary to the Government of the Federation to immediately probe the out going managing director of the agency, Bayo Onanuga for fraud’-Labor Unions in NAN
BY GEORGE ELIJAH OTUMU/AMERICAN FOREIGN BUREAU CHIEF
BAYO ONANUGA needs no introduction in the Nigerian media industry. Out-going Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of News Agency of Nigeria, NAN is presently facing the toughest battle of his career from labor unions within the ranks of NAN that has alleged several issues bothering on fraud, mismanagement, authoritarianism, disrespect for policies amongst others. Livid, Onanuga is saying the allegation is the most uncharitable, most wicked about his three-year tenure.
Reacting to a petition written by four labour unions in NAN to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) seeking immediate probe of the out going managing director of the agency.
The petitioners raised issues around the following: ‘Agency In Darkness, Appointment Of Sa, Nanbizcom, Auctioning Of Vehicles, Intimidation Via Consultants, Intervention Fund, Termination/Suspension Of Staff, Nan 40th Anniversary, N500m Libel Suit, Sabotage, Official Injustice And Impunity, Recruitment/Nan As A Family Business.’ Onanuga responded to them one after the other.
Generally, Onanuga saw the petition as an attempt to rubbish the good work he has done in the agency, saying emphatically that he is ready for a probe. In other words, the EFCC or ICPC should be invited to check the records. In his words: “Since I assumed duty as Managing Director, I have never dipped my hands into the Agency’s coffers. I have demonstrated financial discipline by reducing waste, all because I believe the agency must survive first to fulfill its core business of news gathering and distribution. All the past three years, the unions have never accused me of financial impropriety. It is painful that at the end of my tenure, they suddenly cooked up the malicious and actionable allegations.All records are available to support my submission and I hope the signatories to the petition will be ready to defend their libellous allegations. The lies are designed to block my re-appointment. I wish them good luck. I believe the petitioners are afraid of impending reforms in the Agency and are doing everything possible to thwart efforts to make NAN compete. I attach a summary of my achievements the past three years. I also suggest that the Honourable Minister (of Information) call the signatories to a meeting on Monday, to discuss the allegations. I need to confront them face-to-face.”
Sensing that his reputation is being maligned. Onanuga said he met the agency almost comatose and he ran it with financial prudence, denying himself and his office of his entitlements, brutally cutting costs, all to ensure that it survives and fulfils the mandate for which it was set up 43 years ago. He added that the agency had spent in 18 months N85million on creating a website before his arrival and N7.5m yearly on internet hosting. Onanuga revealed that he created three websites with less than N1.7m and paid less than N2m, about $5,000 every year for hosting at pagely.com. “What a corrupt CEO I had been!” Said he.
AGENCY IN DARKNESS:
” I recall my first day in NAN Headquarters on 25 MAY 2016. I was surprised when the lights were switched off at 10.am. I was told power supply would return at 2pm. I learnt this had been the practice for some years, because the agency did not have money to buy diesel. I found this strange in a news agency that ought to run with 24 hour power supply. I provided N250,000 of my own money to the Technical Department to buy diesel and decreed that on no account must the agency be in darkness from 8am till 8pm daily. This was sustained all through my three years.
I embarked on cost-cutting measures, cutting allowances for the MD and other managers. I suspended burial and marriage grants later ruled as illegal by the Federal Government. I slashed the N200,000 imprest meant for my office to N50,000. I declined collecting DTA due to me when I made official trips to Lagos. The imprest was paid irregularly, even after the vast reduction from the N200,000 officially earmarked, thus making me spend personal funds for official duties. I regularly joked I must be NAN’s most austere CEO.
On
NANBIZCOM, the NAN MD wrote:
“NANBizcom
was set up as a limited liability company. The auditing of the
accounts up till 2017 has been done. We are in the process of
auditing the accounts for 2018 and are still owing the auditors for
2015-2017 audit, done under my watch. The Federal Auditors have
perused our books before and not once was it raised that the income
of NANBIZCOM should go into TSA.
NAN
BIZCOM has accounts with Access Bank and Zenith Bank and is dependent
on income from training and commercialisation of some of NAN assets,
such as the Media Centre in Lagos. In 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, the
last two years under my stewardship, the total turnover generated by
the company was as follows: 2017 – N14,666,100, 2016 –
N13,760,158. 2015- N12,341,260, 2014- N 24,947,840. Please note that
the figures are not reflective of the monthly costs incurred in
running, most especially the Media Centre in Lagos. We are in the
process of re-organising the company for better performance. Its key
asset, Media Centre in Lagos has just been renovated. It was done by
direct labour at a cost of about N7million. We got a quote of
N22million from a contractor before my management decided to adopt
direct labour. (I attach some photos). I am not aware that the income
accruing to NAN Bizcom, a limited liability company, should be paid
into TSA, as being alleged. It is simply wicked to accuse me of
diverting the income to my personal use. The audited accounts will
clear all issues around this.
On his alleged
“TERMINATION/SUSPENSION OF STAFF”, he reacted:
“The
appointments of two members of staff were terminated because they
wrote fake stories. It is a capital offence in journalism for an
officer to sit down in the comfort of his room to concoct stories.
Five other officers, at various times, were suspended for similar
offences. They were duly queried but Management was not satisfied
with the explanation as their offences put the Federal Government and
NAN in serious disrepute.Three persons suspended in 2017, two of
them, deputy directors, wrote a spurious story that the Federal
Government had increased fees in tertiary schools, quoting a fake
press release credited to an ASUU chairman in the University of
Ibadan. The man denied issuing the press statement. NAN retracted the
story and wrote a letter of apology to the ASUU official. Due process
was followed in the actions taken by management. Left to the
petitioners, I should not discipline staff who crossed the yellow and
red lines, including committing the capital offence of writing fake
news.”
Concerning the
issue of “INTIMIDATION VIA CONSULTANTS,” he has this to
say:
“I really do not understand what they meant that I was
using consultants to intimidate staff.
First of all, I ran an open
office all through my three years. Staff were free to seek audience
with me. Last year, I called in retired directors to set the tests
for promotion in all departments. Could these be the consultants they
were complaining about? One of the signatories to the petition,
Suleman failed the last promotion exam. He wanted me to promote him,
nevertheless. I refused. He now wants a pound of flesh. As far as I
know, all those who passed the tests were promoted. We also promoted
those who fell on the borderline. Allegation of intimidation is
baseless.”
The petition was jointly signed by Haruna Suleiman, Chairman Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE); Collins Yakubu Hammer, Chairman Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ); Ogechi J. James, President Senior Staff Association of Statutory Corporations and Government Owned Companies (SSASCGOC) and Daniel Akaphiare, Chairman, the Radio Television Theatre and Art Workers Union of Nigeria (RATTAWU).
Below is Mr Onanuga’s full reaction to the petition and Summary Of His Achievements (MAY 2016 – MAY 2019)
• RE:
SAVE NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA (NAN) FROM EMINENT (SIC) COLLAPSE: PLEASE
DON’T RE-APPOINT BAYO ONANUGA? ?
Thank
you the Honourable Minister for giving me the opportunity to respond
to this defamatory petition of the four unions in the News Agency of
Nigeria (NAN).
I was shocked to read the allegations levelled against me by NAN Joint Union, an illegal creation of the four unions in the agency.
More shocking was the description of my tenure by the signatories to the letter as ‘the worst’ and I ‘the most corrupt manager in the history of the agency”.
The descriptions are the most uncharitable, most wicked about my three-year tenure.
I met the agency almost comatose and I ran it with financial prudence, denying myself and my office of my entitlements, brutally cutting costs, all to ensure that it survives and fulfils the mandate for which it was set up 43 years ago. The agency had spent in 18 months N85million on creating a website before my arrival and N7.5m yearly on internet hosting. I created three websites with less than N1.7m and paid less than N2m, about $5,000 every year for hosting at pagely.com. What a corrupt CEO I had been!
AGENCY IN DARKNESS:
• I recall my first day in NAN Headquarters on 25 MAY 2016. I was surprised when the lights were switched off at 10.am. I was told power supply would return at 2pm. I learnt this had been the practice for some years, because the agency did not have money to buy diesel. I found this strange in a news agency that ought to run with 24 hour power supply. I provided N250,000 of my own money to the Technical Department to buy diesel and decreed that on no account must the agency be in darkness from 8am till 8pm daily. This was sustained all through my three years.
I embarked on cost-cutting measures, cutting allowances for the MD and other managers. I suspended burial and marriage grants later ruled as illegal by the Federal Government. I slashed the N200,000 imprest meant for my office to N50,000. I declined collecting DTA due to me when I made official trips to Lagos. The imprest was paid irregularly, even after the vast reduction from the N200,000 officially earmarked, thus making me spend personal funds for official duties. I regularly joked I must be NAN’s most austere CEO.
Still as part
of cost saving, I sometimes elected to travel economy class on few
occasions I went on foreign trips, the latest being a fact-finding
mission to Abidjan about the agency’s property.
While I beseech
God to forgive my traducers, I have taken steps to seek legal remedy.
I will now
respond to the allegations raised by the petitioners, along with the
ones made by the faceless group, signed by a non-existing NAN staff,
called Idris Bala.
AGENCY IN DARKNESS, APPOINTMENT OF SA,
APPOINTMENT OF
SA:
1. Momoh: My predecessor had three SAs, one of whom I
inherited. Then I appointed Momoh, being a long serving staff, who
started in editorial and had run the agency’s subsidiary company,
NAN Bizcom , before ending his career as director of
administration.
2. My second assistant, was Mr Joe Bankole, who
also had spent long years in the agency and was specifically retained
to help in the re-engineering of the Multimedia unit of the agency.
The agency had invested a lot of money in training Bankole.
3.
Both were paid by government on downgraded level from 17 to 16.
Bankole was fired last year after failing to organise the 40th
anniversary of the agency. But why did unions wait till this moment
to kick against Momoh?
NANBIZCOM
NANBizcom
was set up as a limited liability company. The auditing of the
accounts up till 2017 has been done. We are in the process of
auditing the accounts for 2018 and are still owing the auditors for
2015-2017 audit, done under my watch. The Federal Auditors have
perused our books before and not once was it raised that the income
of NANBIZCOM should go into TSA.
NAN BIZCOM has accounts with
Access Bank and Zenith Bank and is dependent on income from training
and commercialisation of some of NAN assets, such as the Media Centre
in Lagos. In 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, the last two years under my
stewardship, the total turnover generated by the company was as
follows: 2017 – N14,666,100.
2016 – N13,760,158. 2015-
N12,341,260, 2014- N 24,947,840
Please note
that the figures are not reflective of the monthly costs incurred in
running, most especially the Media Centre in Lagos. We are in the
process of re-organising the company for better performance. Its key
asset, Media Centre in Lagos has just been renovated. It was done by
direct labour at a cost of about N7million. We got a quote of
N22million from a contractor before my management decided to adopt
direct labour. (I attach some photos)
I am not aware that the
income accruing to NAN Bizcom, a limited liability company, should be
paid into TSA, as being alleged.
It is simply wicked to accuse me
of diverting the income to my personal use. The audited accounts will
clear all issues around this.
AUCTIONING OF VEHICLES:
I inherited a
lot of KIA vehicles guzzling money for repairs. It was in realisation
of this that we requested for new vehicles under the Presidential
Intervention Fund to replace them. I bought one of the auctioned
cars: the six year-old car attached to me.
Other vehicles were
sold to the managers and those who expressed interest, including one
of the drivers in Lagos. Due process was followed in the disposal of
the vehicles, including approval of the Ministry of Works and an
advert for auctioning placed by an official auctioneer. All records
are available.
INTIMIDATION
VIA CONSULTANTS:
I really do not understand what they meant that I
was using consultants to intimidate staff.
First of all, I ran an
open office all through my three years. Staff were free to seek
audience with me.
Last year, I called in retired directors to set
the tests for promotion in all departments. Could these be the
consultants they were complaining about?
One of the signatories to
the petition, Suleman failed the last promotion exam. He wanted me to
promote him, nevertheless. I refused. He now wants a pound of flesh.
As far as I know, all those who passed the tests were promoted. We
also promoted those who fell on the borderline. Allegation of
intimidation is baseless.
INTERVENTION FUND
In the
unionists rush to crucify Bayo Onanuga, their accusation Number 5 was
disjointed. I could not therefore figure out what they were
alleging.
Suffice it to say that the Intervention fund for the
election was used strictly for the purposes for which the fund was
released. Fifteen Peugeot cars approved by government were bought
directly from Peugeot Automobile after a waiver from BPP and approval
of Federal Executive Council (FEC), 100 quality HP laptops were
bought and 150 ipads and Samsung tabs were also bought as approved by
BPP. All were distributed to reporters, editors and some members of
staff in other departments. The records are there in the store.
Also
Galaxy Backbone, a government agency which is our internet service
provider was invited to upgrade NAN bandwidth as approved by Mr.
President. Abuja headquarters which previously had 5 MBPS up and down
was upgraded to 30 MBPS and Lagos with 1 MBPS was upgraded to 10 MBPS
up and down. Galaxy Backbone can confirm. NAN SMS platform was also
expanded. The books are always open to independent investigation. We
welcome ICPC and EFCC.
TERMINATION/SUSPENSION
OF STAFF
The appointments of two members of staff were terminated
because they wrote fake stories. It is a capital offence in
journalism for an officer to sit down in the comfort of his room to
concoct stories. Five other officers, at various times, were
suspended for similar offences. They were duly queried but Management
was not satisfied with the explanation as their offences put the
Federal Government and NAN in serious disrepute.Three persons
suspended in 2017, two of them, deputy directors, wrote a spurious
story that the Federal Government had increased fees in tertiary
schools, quoting a fake press release credited to an ASUU chairman in
the University of Ibadan. The man denied issuing the press statement.
NAN retracted the story and wrote a letter of apology to the ASUU
official.
Due process was followed in the actions taken by
management. Left to the petitioners, I should not discipline staff
who crossed the yellow and red lines, including committing the
capital offence of writing fake news.
NAN 40th
ANNIVERSARY:
The 40th Anniversary of NAN was planned to hold in
October last year but the organising committee made a shabby
arrangement. The Board of Directors asked us to suspend the
celebration. The donors were informed.
All the donations, about
N5million were kept with NAN BIZCOM as they were not revenue that
should go into TSA.
For now, the money has been borrowed to
renovate the NAN Media Centre in Lagos, believing the centre will
make the money back. ( I attach the photos of the media centre,
before and after our renovation)
N500M LIBEL SUIT:
At this
moment, there is no such libel suit against the agency. It exists in
the imagination of the petitioners.
SABOTAGE:
The faceless
group that calls itself CONCERN(SIC) STAFF OF NAN, accused me of
sabotage, alleging that my PMNEWS breaks news before NAN. This is
again groundless. PMNEWS subscribes to NAN and had been a subscriber
for many years. PMNEWS also gets its news from a variety of
sources.
The accusation is surprising and self-indicting to the
faceless petitioners. NAN should break news as a news agency, not the
other way round. Besides, I am neither the editor-in-chief nor
reporter-in-chief of NAN and only help occasionally when stories are
badly written.
But I thank the group for raising this
matter.
Since my arrival in 2016, one unending campaign that I
have waged was to get NAN journalists report news instantaneously.
Subscribers complain constantly about shoddily written and edited
stories. They complain about late news. More often NAN reports news
five, six hours, even at 10 hours, after the event and when we do
report, our stories compare poorly to the ones written by subscribers
we serve. I had issued many queries. I had conducted many grammar
clinics and brought in experts to help out. I appointed an Ombudsman.
The efforts have not made the impact I wanted as the shoddiness
continues.
This I must
say is at the heart of the agency’s problems. Many editorial
staffers of NAN are simply not qualified to be in the newsroom, a
problem caused by compromised recruitment of the past.
And because
of the poor quality of news they produce, the agency is unable to
attract many subscribers, especially outside the country. Subscribers
to the agency’s SMS news alerts would have come across the shameful
errors made by the journalists on a daily basis. Some NAN journalists
can’t write correctly ‘Muhammadu Buhari’ or ‘Yemi Osinbajo’.
Ignorance and incompetence, are so deep seated, so palpable.
OFFICIAL
INJUSTICE AND IMPUNITY:
They got their facts wrong. The editorial
chiefs, who I suspect, wrote the second faceless petition, want
vehicles personally allocated them, against the government rules. We
do not even have such luxury now. Vehicles are now in the
pool.
RECRUITMENT/NAN AS A FAMILY BUSINESS:
I have only
conducted one recruitment exercise since I joined NAN. An approval
was given by the government for the employment of 52 persons, as
replacement for departed staff. An examination was conducted and the
best were recruited. To use Trumpian language, NAN had never before
assembled such high quality recruits in one fell swoop, in its recent
history. Management is today proud of the quality of staff employed.
They are the future of NAN. I do not regret engaging them.
Last year, a
decision was taken to review allowances paid to corps members, IT
Students and my official driver. The allowances have been in place
for more than six years.
I had no nephew that came to serve in
NAN.
GENERAL
COMMENT
In all, I see the petitions as an attempt to rubbish the
good work I have done in the agency.? ?
I am ready for a probe.
The EFCC or ICPC should be invited to check the records.
Since I
assumed duty as Managing Director, I have never dipped my hands into
the Agency’s coffers. I have demonstrated financial discipline by
reducing waste, all because I believe the agency must survive first
to fulfil its core business of news gathering and distribution.?
All the past three years, the unions have never accused me of financial impropriety. It is painful that at the end of my tenure, they suddenly cooked up the malicious and actionable allegations.?
All records are available to support my submission and I hope the signatories to the petition will be ready to defend their libellous allegations. The lies are designed to block my re-appointment. I wish them good luck.
I believe the
petitioners are afraid of impending reforms in the Agency and are
doing everything possible to thwart efforts to make NAN compete
favourably with its peers.
I attach a summary of my achievements
the past three years.
I also suggest that the Honourable Minister
call the signatories to a meeting on Monday, to discuss the
allegations. I need to confront them face-to-face.
SIGNED
BAYO
ONANUGA
……………………………….
NEWS AGENCY OF
NIGERIA
SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS (MAY 2016 – MAY 2019)
(BAYO
ONANUGA, MD/CEO)
*Additional reports by The NEWS Magazine
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