It is becoming evident that Professor Ogunlade Davidson’s summary dismissal last week by President Ernest Bai Koroma has much to do with a procurement process which Davidson is reported to have been very reluctant to endorse rather than the widely publicized excuse about his “non performance” which the presidency wickedly failed to substantiate given that the dismissal, according to Davidson himself interviewed in the Politico newspaper, was not preceded by any prior presidential notice based on a formal and transparent performance evaluation exercise usually needed for fairness and justice in human resource management best practices globally.
Over the past few months, Professor Davidson is said to have been resisting pressure from the presidency to endorse contracts relating to the Bumbuna Phase II dam expansion preferred for two questionable companies, namely, Joule Africa to technically supervise the construction work and Africa Minerals Limited to do the construction work itself. The January 2012 report on Sierra Leone by the UK based Africa Confidential think tank states that “…experts from the Ministry of Energy and Power, including the Minister, Professor Ogunlade Davidson, somewhat reluctantly gave Joule the contract”.
More still, Joule Africa’s capacity to technically supervise dam construction has been recently questioned in the press since this company was first registered in Sierra Leone as a “property developer” not a “dam builder” and has reportedly never undertaken any dam construction work in the world, according to the January 24 2012 edition of the Nationalist Newspaper.
For Africa Minerals Limitedprocurement experts are said to be questioning how a company that has never had any dam construction track record in the world is now being allowed to bid for a 750 million dollar dam expansion construction contract while also seeking to be the sole beneficiary of a 450 mega watts electricity to be generated by the expanded dam as cited in its own assessment report (ref Africa Confidential).
What is even substantiating the above reports is the replacement of Davidson with Oluniyi Robbin-Coker who is said to have been advising the president on private sector matters, including emphasizing to the president the need for the president to go in for the two above cited contracts. Oluniyi is also a controversial man who has never denied repeated media allegations in the past (2007-2010) about his close association with the notorious Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group which had been blacklisted once by the United States government as a terrorist organization.
This is not the first time the regime of President Ernest Bai Koroma is involved in the controversial engagement of services in the energy sector. Income Electrix Gate was the Koroma regime's first procurement furor. Within a month in office, the regime spared no effort in having a field day with the billions he had inherited from the previous SLPP administration of Ahmed Tejan Kabbah. On Income Electrix alone, the regime of President Ernest Bai Koroma spent 25 million dollars to sole source the rent, rather than purchase, of a one-year thermal electricity plant without any competitive bidding which violated with impunity the country's procurement laws. To make matters worse, President Koroma even went ahead afterwards to re-appoint the former Minister, Afsatu Kabbah, involved in the Income Electrix affair to head the huge revenue generating fisheries ministry, which made it possible for Afsatu to steal more monies from the state for which she was found guilty by the Anti Corruption Commission and fined by the regime's court 100 times less than the amounts she stole.
New People CEO Commentary (Sheku M. Kallon Jnr)
On the newly appointed energy minister Oluniyi’s association with the terrorist organization RUF, I have received very credible reports from people with close ties to him of his ties to the RUF that wreaked havoc and mayhem in Sierra Leone and was led by Foday Sankoh. I was shocked by this revelation but not surprised as I think back to when Oluniyi and some few close friends of mine met at a friend’s private residence in Maryland. At that meeting they were trying to persuade me to join them in the Sierra Leone Network which was vying to become a National Umbrella for Sierra Leoneans in the Diaspora like the National Organization of Sierra Leoneans in North America (NOSLINA) which I was the Executive Director for at the time.
Why this new revelation of his close ties to the RUF and AFRC does not surprise me were his comments during our meetings that reflected his disdain for the SLPP led by President Ahmed Tejan Kabba at that time. I assumed then that they were genuine opinions of disagreement with the way Ahmed Tejan Kabba and the SLPP were handling the affairs of the country as he was very shrewd in couching his disdain on sound ideological grounds which is why I did not connect the dots then that he was close with the RUF and according to my source was at that time "actively working with Omrie Golley who was based in the United Kingdom at the time and was the public spokesperson and defender of the RUF".
My source has also revealed that Oluniyi , Ernest Koroma’s blue eyed boy, adviser and who has been playing the role of providing intellectual cover for State House’s many shady business deals in the country was also part of the Burkina Faso connection and even spearheaded the fast track release of Omrie Golley from prison in Sierra Leone.
What does not surprise me though is his support for the APC and eventually serving the Ernest Koroma administration. On their attempt to woo me from NOSLINA at that time, obviously I refused because of two reasons:
1. I was not about to be part of second attempt at building a similar organization like NOSLINA when all they had to do was join NOSLINA and help us make it successful and take its rightful place in the minds of Diaspora Sierra Leoneans. Too many times, people have abandoned the hard work it takes to build organizations that are credible with great objectives, just to start on another time consuming effort with a different set of characters to build another similar organization. Eventually you always end up with the same growing pains like any new organization and just have to stick with it until you are successful. There was no way, I was going to start on such an inevitable journey with the Sierra Leone Network.
2. Based on the views of most of the key members of the Sierra Leone Network at that time with the exception of a very few like Amara Kuyateh and Mustapha Sesay, I suspected that it was simply another APC fronted outfit and filled with opportunistic individuals with a hidden agenda to ingratiate themselves to any government of the day.
I have tried reaching Oluniyi with no avail to help shed light on these very credible reports of his RUF connection and hope he will soon come clean with the people of Sierra Leone. As noted in our National Correspondent’s report above, Oluniyi has never denied these allegations from other media sources like the Awareness Times.
The New People Online will keep a very close eye on Mr. Oluniyi’s tenure at the Ministry of Energy and hope that he does not engage in unethical behavior and starts to rubber stamp all the shady deals that Professor Ogunlade refused to do which led to his dismissal. We know that the company he worked for prior to his relocation to Sierra Leone from the US Citi which has a track record of losing billions of investor monies in shady housing financial investment vehicles necessitating a bailout with US Tax payers money from the Federal government. Therefore we will be on the lookout as companies such as Citi that lacks integrity in their executive leadership that contributed to the financial crisis in the US churn out employees like Oluniyi who are very likely to repeat such unethical behavior when given the opportunity. With allegations of Oluniyi’s close ties to an outfit like the RUF, I will not be holding my breath for any transformational change in the Energy Ministry. People like Oluniyi who I view as a smart and intelligent person can be very dangerous in a rogue regime like the APC as they have the intellect to validate corruption and incompetence by misleading people with their cleverly crafted arguments.
