By Foster Obi
“With too much respect you will end up as a weakling. Keep everything balanced. Don’t exaggerate anything, nor please others for your own ruin….” Mwanandeke Kindembo
Recently after a roundtable in Lagos, a few colleagues while refreshing were trying to deconstruct the newly confirmed substantive managing director of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) Mohammed Bello-Koko.
What led to this was when the news filtered in that he has been confirmed by President Buhari.
Out of a group of 15 journalists, five said he merited it, Eight said he did not, while two stood in the middle.
Of the Eight that said No, two were unrepentant fans of the sacked former MD, Hadiza Bala-Usman. The duo believed that although Koko is older than Hadiza, he lacks charisma and the dynamics of power, while Hadiza is at home with, ‘The 48 Laws of Power,’ which was why she was a hard nut for the transport Minister, Chibuike Amaechi to crack.
They highlighted that because of Koko’s relationship with the Minister of Transport way back as a banker, while he serviced the government of Amaechi then in Rivers State for his Bank, he may be unwilling to rock the boat, and may end up unwittingly as “an errand boy,” a position that Hadiza vehemently resisted.
They also thinks that the Pandora papers indictment which is hanging on his shoulders like an albatross may puncture his tenure as some of his enemies may be spoiling to fight dirty.
Among the five that said they had implicit confidence in Bello-Koko, three were already shifting in their seats while the opposing guys were talking, that they cut them short, as it seemed they had over-reached themselves by calling the MD a potential puppet.
The pro side argued that while Koko is barely eight months in office, he has shown capacity by the fine-tuning of the Eto, the new electronic call-up system for trucks introduced by NPA to reduce congestion on the Lagos port access roads, which has remained an intractable problem over the years.
They also insisted that the MD has other projects in the pipeline which will definitely make the ports better than he met them.
Of the two persons that were ambivalent, one said while he likes the MD because of his humble mien, the look could also be deceptive and so he wants more time to observe his actions and take position.
The second man said that Koko is an accountant and will be miserly . “He wont be people oriented but may generate more money to government coffers.”
The common thread however is that all the speakers agreed they had not met the man one on one and so this writer believes that their different opinions are simply subjective.
While the Pandora issue raised by the other side is a weight on the MD’s should, it is difficult to ascertain whether this will affect the completion of his tenure as only time will spell this out.
For purposes of clarity, Bello-Koko last year was named in the Pandora Papers, a trove of 11.9 million leaked confidential records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, as anonymously owning properties through offshore companies.
The Pandora Papers project was led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which Premium Times is a part of.
The Pandora Papers contain leaked files reportedly gotten from offshore service firms globally.
According to the revelation by Pandora Papers, Bello-Koko, with his wife, Agatha Anne Koko, enlisted the services of financial secrecy seller, Cook Worldwide and Alemán, Cordero, Galindo & Lee (Alcogal), an offshore law firm, to secretly register Coulwood Limited (reg. number: 1487897) and Marney Limited (reg. number: 1487944) in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), one of the world’s most commonly used tax havens, in 2008. Both companies were registered the same day, June 19, 2008.
The regulators in the BVI also had his companies under watch for suspected money laundering — a problem Alcogal reportedly helped him tackle with some misinformation provided to the regulators.
Using the two companies, Coulwood Limited and Marney Limited, tucked away offshore, Bello-Koko then anonymously acquired five London properties.
During the period he acquired the shell companies and the first four UK properties, he was still in the private sector and therefore did not violate Nigerian law.
But one of the properties was said to have been acquired in May 2017 after he took up an appointment at the NPA. He was appointed executive director for finance and administration in 2016 and later acting MD in 2021.
The other four properties were acquired between 2009 and 2012, making Bello-Koko potentially exploit UK tax loopholes that allowed the owning of UK properties using so-called envelope structure, that is, anonymously owning properties through offshore companies.
A breakdown of the investment projects showed that between 2008 and 2012, four years before Mr Bello-Koko joined the NPA, he had spent on four London properties a sum of £995,000, an equivalent of N293 million at 2015 exchange rate of N294 to a pound.
In a recent interview with a daily on the allegation, Bello-Koko said the properties were “purchased from income from my private business and mortgage loans from a bank in the UK, long before I was appointed to NPA”.
According to him, “Those companies are not trading companies. They are Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) for the sole purpose of holding an investment, and they were created between 2006 and 2007.
“The property being claimed I purchased in 2017 was actually purchased off-plan in 2013, and completion was supposed to be in early 2016, but it was shifted to 2017, and by then, I was already working at NPA.
However certain stakeholders think that this is an August opportunity for Bello-Koko to seize and give himself the classic image he wants to be identified with.
A former Director of Operations at Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Captain Warredi Enisuoh while giving an insight on this told DFCNews,
“Its a big opportunity for Bello-Koko to showcase himself. He should look at automating some of the processes of the NPA that are possible within the current climes. He should work with customs to bring the use of scanners into the ports as this would clear the yard faster.
“The utilisation of the Delta and Eastern Ports should be on his front desk as this would in turn help the Lagos ports.
“In all, NPA should look at redesign of it’s ports and work to ensure our channels are deep enough to accommodate larger ships. “Tie this later to automating our processes and you will find out how much transit cargo Nigeria will be attracting.
“We will be creating more jobs and no Nigerian bound cargo will be dropped off in other west African ports.
“In addition, keying into the single window system will be of great help.
“The port business in Nigeria is too concentrated in Lagos and this is creating congestion and putting pressure on the roads.
“This congestion and pressure on the roads can be eased up by upgrading the Delta ports. We cannot shy away from dredging.
“Coming to dredging, the Lagos ports are also suffering from draft restrictions.
“Other West African ports are getting deeper and deeper, thereby accommodating ship sizes of modern day times. This and lack of automated processes are making us creating jobs for our neighbouring countries and we loosing businesses to them.
“The lack of coming on stream of the Inland Dry Ports and Inland Container Depots to ease of spaces inside the ports is another factor where the Shippers Council and NPA should really work together and fast too.
“There are illegal Container and cargo Terminals springing up where there is water. How well are these Terminals monitored?
“They could compromise our national security.
“Barge operations seems to be booming without proper and robust regulations. Another area to be seriously looked into”, Warredi who is a sea captain and aircraft pilot noted.
Picture: Newly confirmed NPA MD, Mohammed Bello-Koko
FOSTER OBI is the Editor, DFCNewsng.com
