French statesman and foremost diplomat, Charles-Maurice de Telleyrand-Périgord, 1st Prince of Benevento, said they learnt nothing and forgot nothing. We not only repeat the same mistake but also fail to heed warnings.
Unfortunately, before proceeding, Seplat did not tell Nigerians and its shareholders how those litigations, which were even clearly avoidable, came about. For instance, the lawsuit by some shareholders against the company’s CEO, Roger Brown; the board chairman, Basil Omiyi; and the independent non-executive directors in the federal high court Lagos.
So, it could be seen that all these boil down to flagrant corporate misgovernance. Imagine the Omiyi-led board was alive to its duty. Imagine it took the employees’ concerns seriously as an independent and addressed them. There would not have been a lawsuit by shareholders over the mistreatment of Nigerian employees at Seplat. The Nigerian staff would not have petitioned the FG and there would have been no litigation.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the H1 results reads in part: “General and Administrative expenses amounted to $65.8million, 42.0% higher than $46.4million incurred in 6M of 2022. This increase in G & A cost was mainly due to professional fees associated with the litigation costs in response to the unprecedented and intense period of minority shareholder actions through the courts….”
Meanwhile, one cannot but join the shareholders and MADI in wondering if Brown is worth all the money and trouble.