Abdulmumuni, on of the sons of late billionaire businessman, MKO Abiola, has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to caution his half-brother, Kola, over the dealings involving their late father’s company, Summit Oil.
He noted that while Tinubu was a friend of Abiola before his death, the squabble over the running of his father’s asset shouldn’t be witnessed while Tinubu is in office.
Abdulmumuni had also accused Kola and his sister, Wura, of independently running the oil company, one of their father’s many enterprises, without the consent of other family members.
This was revealed in a programme titled ‘Mic On Podcast’ hosted by Channels TV presenter, Seun Okinbaloye.
The video of the programmewas released on Saturday, October 5, 2024.
Abdulmumuni lamented that Kola and his sister, Wura, made themselves the Executive Chairman and Managing Director, respectively; a move which he termed as illegal.
Kola and Wura are some of the children of Abiola’s first wife, Simbiat; while Abdulmumuni, and some others, are children of the second wife, Kudirat.
Abdulmumuni noted that the oil company, among others, was captured in his father’s will.
He recalled that he had written a petition to the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to probe the oil company’s operations.
He said, “We are writing a letter to Mr President, seeking his intervention in this matter. Whichever way, he is the Minister for Petroleum. He should see what they have done with my father’s oil company, and know that if this can be happening in such a company, God knows how many companies are also using that, and that might be a reason why our subsidies and all these things are becoming unbearable.
“He (Tinubu) is my father’s friend, he knows everything, my father suffered [sic]. He too has all these assets. Would he like things like these to happen to his children? I’m appealing to him to look into this matter…Let it not be that in Asiwaju’s administration, we’ll be having this conversation come this time next year. Let him solve this problem once and for all. Call all the parties to order! Call Kola to order! Enough is enough!”
He narrated further, “None of us (Abiola’s children) is on the board. I don’t even know who made them chairman and director. These things they’ve done are illegal. Nobody made them directors.”
“There were some revelations made to me which stated that since 2017, Summit Oil had been lifting crude and this was an agreement that he (Kola) had done with a third party, Duport Midstream Limited. Since that time, they had lifted over 566,000 barrels of oil and between that time, $50 million has passed between the operator, Brother Kola’s and his sister, Wura’s hands.
“I wonder where’s all that money going to. That money was never declared. We never even knew that they were lifting. We wouldn’t have known of this problem if not that my brother is now suing the operator for corruption and fraud. And I wonder who is doing the fraud.
“You are depriving me of my inheritance and yet you have the guts to go and accuse somebody of fraud. So, I’m a little bit worried about how he came up with the idea that he’s going to prosecute somebody else because you are doing an illegal thing, lifting without telling anybody in the family.”
He asserted that if he had $1m, he’d be okay but wondered how his brother found it difficult to share proceeds from the said $50m.
He lamented that the company has 20 million barrels of oil, which, according to him, is enough for Abiola’s children and grandchildren to survive.
According to information obtained from the company’s website, Summit Oil International Limited is a pioneer oil company that was founded in 1990 by Abiola to embrace the independent indigenous upstream oil company concept. OPL 205, located largely in the Anambra Basin on the north edge of the Niger Delta, was granted to Summit in 1990.
The information added that Summit Oil acquired 2D seismic in 1991 and drilled the first exploration well in the first quarter of 1992, which discovered the Otien Field on OPL 205 – arguably the first oil discovery ever by a private indigenous company in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Credit: punchng.com
