OMOLAYOLE AND INTEGRITY IN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Dr Mike Omolayole, remember him? Remember him of the dapper suit and stylishly parted haircut; him of the hilarious but message-laden after dinner speeches; him who did great exploits as the helmsman at the behemoth, Lever Brothers Plc? How can anyone forget, you might counter, until you realise that this management guru and boardroom icon, actually retired from Lever Brothers a whopping 24 years ago!

But this is not a piece about the man. This is about something he said recently that got me thinking and returning to an issue we had partly raised in this column before.
This is a piece about Dr Omolayole’s take on integrity in the corporate world and its possible effect on what I would like to call the creeping recolonisation of the Nigerian economy. In a piece titled “Corporate Management: More Questions than Answers,” this veteran of the board room and corporate management trailblazer reviewed the corporate landscape and wondered what had gone wrong.
Backgrounding his concerns, Dr Omolayole recalled how during “the last quarter of the 19th Century to the early 70s of the 20th Century” conglomerates and multinationals in Nigeria “were managed by expatriate personnel especially at the top” and how “the Indigenisation Act in Nigeria in the 70s helped in no small measure to change the status quo.”
So helpful was the Act, he said, that “where there was only one Nigerian CEO of a Multinational Company quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange” in 1973, “by 1980, the picture had changed. The country had four or five Nigerians who were CEOs of multinational companies quoted on the Stock Exchange. By 1990, the country probably reached the highest number and quality in terms of progress made”.
Continuing, Dr Omolayole wrote: “However, between 1990 and 2000, some large multinationals somehow did not seem to find it easy to sustain an indigenous management succession or decided outright to turn back the hand of the clock. Some of these companies are Guinness Nigeria Plc, Unilever Nigeria Plc, and Nestle Nigeria Plc. We are now more than half way into the first decade of the 21st Century and the picture is more gloomy. Cadbury Nigeria Plc, Nigerian Breweries Plc, WAPCO and PZ Industries have joined the groups that are now managed at the very top by expatriates”.
He then posed the questions: “What has gone wrong and still going wrong? What exactly is happening? Have the majority owners of multinationals lost confidence in Nigerians? A situation where the two biggest Confectionery Companies, two biggest Breweries and two largest detergent companies are being managed by expatriates is worrisome. Are all Nigerian top managers non-performing or adjudged by expatriates to be bitten by the bug of lack of integrity?” (Emphasis mine)
Although he went on to raise issues like whether “this phenomenon is going on unnoticed or is being swept under the carpet” and how “this trend calls for a public debate by all stakeholders including the Federal Government “etc, it is the latter part of his questions above that caught my attention.
No, I do not dismiss as unimportant the other issues that he raised. How can one say it is unimportant to reflect on and find answers to such posers like:”What future projections can we make? Has it occurred to multinational owners of large manufacturing outfits, that 99 per cent of the consumers of their products are Nigerians? Is economic nationalism dead, killed by globalisation? Is there now an artificial glass ceiling in the Corporate Boardroom for nationals? That is, a level beyond, which nationals cannot rise. What answers could we possibly give to such questions from our children and grandchildren with regards to this phenomenon?”
Neither can one fault his conclusion that: “The future of our great country still lies in its ability to harness the potential of its abundant human resources (Human Capital) at the very top levels, be it in Management or Public Service”.
But I wish to state unequivocally that the issue of integrity is critical. I know it because, I know that if there is a grave national drought in Nigeria; it is in the integrity department. And I am sure you and I know it. I know also that Dr Omolayole knows it, otherwise, he would not have raised it. In fact, so acutely aware of it is he that his contribution to Marketing Memoirs, one of the works of the prolific Nigerian journalists and authors, Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe, centred on integrity. In chapter seven of that book, he was quoted as saying: “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything. We stand for integrity, we stand for transparency.” And the authors commented: “It is interesting and commendable to note that Omolayole and Associates insists on not offering or receiving bribe to induce patronage whether making profit or loss. Dr Omolayole is a role model to leaders in private and public sector in Nigeria”.

So, whilst we debate the glass ceilings and the consumer statistics, I wish to state that we need to take a closer look at the subject of integrity in the work place, at ALL levels. This is because, I believe in the injunction of the bible that says, “…if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged (1 Corinthians 11:31).

Readers of this column will recall my reports of the Christian Men’s Network Nigeria’s luncheon addressed by Elder Felix Ohiwerei last October. During the interactive session, a number of the speakers raised the issue of integrity in the marketing departments of major companies particularly as regards sponsorships and related matters. It was clear that where outright bribes were not being demanded, over-invoicing was rampant and the sponsorship seeker who refuses to cooperate does so to his peril.

I recently requested a few of my friends who operate in this area to react to an earlier piece, “Corporate Nigeria and the Secularity Bogey”. One of them wrote and I quote: ”It is true that values of jobs is are jacked up by sponsors. It is really sad. I even have a friend’s account of how he submitted a proposal with a certain amount, executed the job and was paid a much higher amount. The instruction he got was to CASH THE CHEQUE AND RETURN THE BALANCE. And that if he protested the entire sum will be tied down for God knows how long. In the course of running my own programme, I’ve found out that even NGOs collaborate with some company officials to defraud companies, because donations for charitable purposes are not taxed. So they write a N2million cheque and turn round to get, say N1million; give the NGO N1m and N2m is reflected on record. I tell you this is deep…”

The significant thing here is that the marketing departments have tended to produce the CEO of major companies. With antecedents like this, what is the integrity level that can be expected of such CEOs? When you recall Elder Ohiwerei’s account of his brush with the Customs as NB Plc’s CEO and how he had to airlift raw materials rather than pay a bribe, it should be clear that the issue transcends one department. For, had the director in charge been around, CEO Ohiwerei would never have known about it!

So, as we debate the recolonisation of Nigeria’s corporate world, and focus, as we have been doing lately, on corruption in political governance, let’s open up an equally urgent and important debate on integrity in corporate governance in our land.

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From My Inbox
RE: SHEPHERDS, THIEVES …

Lawyers have a saying that "nothing can on nothing stand" You cannot build a concrete mansion on a wooden foundation. Without being born again, no amount of "holy living" can take a man to heaven. If the Devil could carry out some humanitarian activities, will that make him acceptable? Is it in order to dine with the Devil, with or without a long spoon?

You hit the nail on the head with that biblical quotation about the shepherd and the sheepfold. Morally and spiritually, the end does not justify the means. "You cannot steal a goose and offer God the gosling" - C.H. Spurgeon. Amalekite oxen are unacceptable as burnt offering. Might is not right but right is right. This is the way forward for the country.

Akintunde Makinde,
Lagos