Governor Obaseki’s eight-year tenure in Edo State was marked by several controversies, including allegations of conflict of interest and cronyism. One of the most glaring examples is the involvement of Afrinvest and Banwo Ighodalo in various projects, including Radisson Blue, Sobe Farms, the Benin Industrial Park, Benin Sea Port, Benin Mall, and the total destruction of public education in Edo State.
At the beginning of his administration, erstwhile Governor Obaseki told the world that Radisson Blue, Ossiomo Power Plant and several other government investments under his watch built with the state’s treasury belong to Edo State Government. His penchant for open-ended and manifest fraud remained classic in the annals of financial corruption.
On September 5, 2022, the governor told journalists in Benin City that “the Ossiomo Power Project is the brainchild of the Edo State Government to make the state self-sustaining in power supply.
“The 95MW facility was given birth to through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Ossiomo Power Company and owned by Edo State Government to power government offices and hospitals, as well as street lights in Benin metropolis.”.
Surprisingly, a few days before his exit from office, after 8 years of waste, deception and fraud, Obaseki recanted that Ossiomo Power Plant, including other companies he earlier claimed belonged to Edo State Government, no longer belonged to Edo State but to private individuals, whose identities he refused to disclose.
A socio-economic group, Onitsha Zone Shareholders’ Association, has uncovered plans by Afrinvest, a company owned by a former governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, to sell N100 billion bond with the aim of converting it to his personal shares in the future. The group, led by its chairman, Bishop Goodluck Akpore, disclosed this during a protest visit to Governor Monday Okpebholo in the government house in Benin City.
During the visit, Bishop Akpore expressed dissatisfaction with the alleged plan, citing its adverse economic impact on the state and its communities. He presented a report highlighting issues involving Okomu Oil Palm and Presco PLC and urged Governor Okpebholo to initiate a thorough investigation and take corrective actions to mitigate any further harm.
The association accused Obaseki of using his Afrinvest Company to plan a ₦100 billion bond transaction involving Presco PLC and alleged a potential conversion of the bond to shares for personal gains.
Bishop Akpore alleged that the oil palm companies colluded with Obaseki’s administration to deprive the state of economic benefits and criticized the refusal of Presco PLC to compensate host communities for the 36,388 hectares of land acquired for their operations.
He also highlighted the failure of the Obaseki administration to enforce tax collection from the companies, despite their significant profits and lack of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects.
“A trailer load of palm oil leaving Edo State for Lagos is valued at around ₦80 million,” Akpore stated. “Yet, these companies neither remit taxes nor compensate for the lands they have used freely,” Bishop Akpore said on behalf of the group.
Exposing the sleaze of former Obaseki’s administration further, beyond the disclosures of Bishop Akpore and his group, sources in Edo State’s Ministry of Finance told Fusion Chronicle Newspaper that these underlisted companies were paid hefty sums for services that could have been provided by civil servants in the Justice or Finance Ministries but were contracted out to cronies from Lagos and Delta States.
Presco Oil Palm PLC and Okomu Oil Palm PLC were some of Godwin Obaseki’s major fertile cesspools of corruption. His undisclosed share stakes in the multi-billion dollar companies were said to be responsible for Godwin Obaseki’s gifting of Edo State community land totaling 36,388 hectares to Presco Oil Palm PLC. Presco PLC’s net income for 2023 was NGN32,861.334 million ($32.86 billion). This was a 152.15% increase from 2022, when their net income was NGN13,032.424 million ($13.03 billion). In 2023, Okomu Oil Palm Company PLC’s net income was N20 billion, which was a 27% increase from the previous year. The company’s revenue for 2023 was N75,107.842 million. It is either that these two companies didn’t pay tax to Edo State Government for straight 8 years of Governor Godwin Obaseki’s administration or the money was fraudulently collected under the table.
