I like to believe that I have a few things in common with Femi Otedola, the billionaire business mogul, founder of Zenon Petroleum and former chairman of Forte Oil PLC. I know what you are probably thinking but I do not count in billions just yet and so let’s get that one out of the way. For whatever it’s worth, we are both November babies. Yay! I know right! That’s not all, we were both born, raised and hopefully practicing Catholics. But that’s where the similarities begin and end.
But let’s face it: Femi Otedola was born into wealth and privilege. His case is not one of those famed rag-to-riches stories. In fact, his inspiration for renting the yacht, I learnt, was because, growing up as a teenager, Aristotle Onassis was his role model and he would end up collecting all kinds of the magnate’s memorabilia, including documentaries, books and movies.
In 2012, Otedola’s Zenon Oil was accused by the House Committee on Fuel Subsidy Regime to have fraudulently obtained over $230 million foreign exchange from Nigeria’s Apex bank for use to import petrol under the subsidy scheme, but failed to use it for that purpose, a charge that Otedola denied. In fact, he claimed that the committe chair, Farouk Lawan extorted $500,000 from him through threats to indict his firms without justification.
Mr Musk responded and challenged the World body to show him via Twitter how $6 billion could be used to overcome world hunger, prompting the UN’s World Food Programme to produce a detailed plan. The world is still waiting to see if Musk and his likes will follow through but more than anything else, this exchange brought again to the fore, the discussion surrounding the role of the stupendously wealthy in solving society’s hunger problems.
Nigeria is the new poverty capital of the world, overtaking India, a country with a population of 1.4 billion people and about seven times our size. That means that our nation has too many hungry mouths to feed. The situation has even become dire in these past several years especially with rising insurgency, farmers-headers clashes and other issues. We are almost at the point where Nigerians would soon be feasting off of each other’s flesh to live.
I am hoping that when our billionaire business mogul makes it back from his Mediterranean cruise, he will march straight to the church at Odoragunsin, Epe where Mama Otedola worships every Sunday. In presence of the most high, Femi should pledge to give more to our society’s growing poor and feeding Nigeria’s hungry. Mama whom I am sure is already proud of all his son has achieved, would be very thrilled for such a move.