I Stand for Akintoye Akindele

Obiora Onyeaso

Akindele, CEO, Duport Midstream Company Limited

In recent weeks media sites, blogs, and social media have been saturated with allegations of corporate malfeasance at Duport Midstream Company Limited.
The accusations are being made by some board members.

In the hollow courts of online comments sections, the villain is Dr. Akintoye Akindele, chief executive of the petroleum refining company. Akindele is a businessman, investor, and philanthropist.

It is a truism that those who approach justice for adjudication must, first of all, possess trust in her patient process. Why the rush to jump the gun?
I am inclined to believe that the slew of ad hominem attacks on Akindele and his family are being carried out by sponsored busybodies. It is beyond the pale.
These writers cast off all restraint in ladling salacious gossip over what should, ordinarily, be serious matters of corporate governance and financial control at one of the fastest growing companies in Nigeria.

Suggestive phrases like “lavish spending”, and “misappropriation of funds” are plastered all over a fictional AI-generated mugshot.
Come to think of it, what does “lavish spending” mean? It is neither here nor there because one person’s extravagant living is another’s Spartan lifestyle.
There is a warped logic to the license taken by these writers.

It is a reflection of the echo chamber of news business these days. Its algorithms are fed by clicks and eyeball count regardless of the quality of information.
It is a sad commentary on the state of journalism that Nigerians have not been treated to an investigative piece on events at Duport Midstream. I hope we will not wait in vain.

After the deluge of allegations, discerning people are asking hard questions. Some of the claims made against him do not add up.

I speak for many when I say that my stomach turned while reading about the case in some of Nigeria’s most respected titles. I had to recheck the URL to assure myself that I had not strayed to a phishing site. My humble take is that yellow journalism is best left to tabloids.

After all, audi alteram partem is a fundamental principle of natural justice. This is the least that one would expect from the mainstream media.
The involvement of the police in what appears, from my perch, to be a purely and exclusively civil dispute further raises moral hackles.
The sequence of events pertaining to his detention raises a number of questions.

On July 20, the Police stormed his office in Lagos. There, the officers met his absence.

This did not stop them from ransacking the office, and harassing employees and visitors. When he received information about the raid, he immediately reached out to the police authorities to find out the purpose of the invasion.

A day later, on July 21, a letter of invitation was received by his office demanding that he come to the Police headquarters in Abuja on July 24 over a petition.
When the letter arrived, he had already scheduled to be in Senegal for the annual Africa Walk event, which was planned months in advance. He travelled on July 23. Africa Walk is organised yearly by Platform Capital, an investment firm where he sits as the chairman.

In any event, an acknowledgment of the invitation and plea to be permitted an extension until July 31 to be at the Police headquarters was sent by his lawyers.
The letter was delivered to and acknowledged by the Police headquarters on July 24.

When he arrived back in Lagos on the July 27, he immediately made plans to be in Abuja for the committed appointment.

To his utmost shock, on July 30, a day before his trip to honour the invitation, his home was invaded by the police and he was whisked off to Abuja. The purported reason was that he was evading arrest. Go figure that out.

In what appears like a coordinated campaign, details of his arrest and the allegations begun to appear in the media and blogs almost as soon as the plane conveying him touched down in Abuja.

One part of the news caught my attention. It said that his arrest became necessary to enable the Force to carry out a thorough investigation.
Pray, since when did the honorable Nigeria Police Force start to put the cart before the horse?

Should an investigation not have been concluded before the pillorying of Akindele’s reputation in a well-orchestrated campaign?
To backtrack a bit, the warrant that served as the basis of the search of his premises and arrest were issued by a Chief Magistrate in Nasarawa State on June 16, over a month before the events described above.

Nasarawa is over 760 kilometers from Lagos to Nasarawa.

Last week, the same warrant was set aside by the Chief Magistrate because, by his own admission, his court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the matter in the first place.
In the interest of full disclosure, Akindele is a close friend of twenty-nine years standing.

This transparency is necessary because it has become the fashion to write public defenses under a camouflage of pseudonyms.

On a grave matter such as personal reputation, either to slander or repair, faceless hacks will not cut it.

The Shock and Awe tactics applied by his traducers have only served to bolster my confidence that desperation lurks beneath the surface of the tempest blown his way.

If, at the end of the day, he is found guilty of the allegations by a court of competent jurisdiction then I will accept that I erred in my character appraisal.
But supported by the modicum of facts, which I am privy to I am optimistic that he will be vindicated.

Throughout the time I have known him, he has always come across as a hardworking, disciplined go-getter who is a sticker for process. If I had to choose, thoroughness will be at the top of my list of his strongest points.

Over the years, I have seen him hit highs and dark troughs. I have also witnessed him his vent his anger – yes, that too – when those he trusted to execute on a project did not share the same commitment to an outcome.

The last thing I will do here is to pretend that he is a man without flaw.

But just as quickly as he flared, I saw him don his boyish charm to express remorse when he hurt people dear to his heart. I have seen him fall and rise again. This has happened not once or twice.

But above all, I have watched him stand loyally by his friends high and low. He is what we used to call a dependable 1 a.m. friend. That is someone you could ring in the dead of the night to come to your side at a point of need.

Up close, I watched Akindele build himself up to become the man he used to tell me he would become. The only difference is that he came up with a better version of himself than we could have dreamt of.

Our relationship dates back to the salad days of youth at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife in the mid-nineties. I was admitted to study Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE). He was in the Chemical Engineering Department, three years ahead of me.

We were introduced by a mutual friend who was his contemporary at Nigeria Navy Secondary School, Ojo. Right away, we took a liking to each other.

It was not hard to see why. We shared a common upbringing. Our parents were cut from the same yardage of the old school public service system. My dad rose to the height of his career in the national power parastatal, and his dad flourished at the Central Bank of Nigeria, where he rose to become a director.
In the excitement of first year liberty, I almost got carried away by the sights and sounds of Great Ife. Woe betide me.

The trio of he, Tope Osazee, and Henry Imona, sadly now late, all my seniors, came to my rescue. They taught me how to walk the minefield between having fun and graduating with good grades.

Akindele’s motto was “Work smart. Play well.”

Later on, our friendship extended to our families.

His older brother, Bola “Sir Bolly” Akindele, founder of Courteville Plc., a listed company on the Nigerian Exchange, became a highly benevolent uncle to everyone in his circle.

I may add here that Oluwatosin Odusanya, one of directors up in arms against Akindele, was a member of that coterie. They were inseparable.

I wish to place on the record that my first job after graduation was offered to me by Sir Bolly.

On my side, Akindele embraced my younger brother, Nwachukwu, as his own.

When he observed that I was not enamoured of the rigours of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) qualification, he shifted the pressure to my sibling. He encouraged him, shared study materials with him, and peppered him with questions at every turn. Those close to him can attest to his affinity for mentoring younger people.

I am pleased to say that Nwachukwu is a proud Charterholder working in the United States today.

After completing the national youth service, Akindele made an interesting detour to finance. The spur for this decision is a story for another day. Starting at Guaranty Trust Bank in the days when Fola Adeola held sway, he thereafter moved to Lead Merchant Bank under the cerebral Bimbo Olashore at a time when the franchise was a Top-3 house for investment banking in Nigeria. Slowly, he was building a name for himself in the industry.

Later on, he was headhunted by John Darlington, a visionary banker, to join the foundation team in setting up Bond Bank. It was at Bond that Akindele found his calling working with emerging companies. Soon, he landed at African Capital Alliance, a private equity and venture capital shop founded by the polymath Dr. Okey Enelamah.

After a couple of years, he decided to venture out on his own. First came Synergy Capital, then, Platform Capital.

Bracketing his record at the last two, Akindele has been involved in some of the most transformational financing for startups in Africa in the last 8 years.

I have had the privilege to see him in his element during meetings with founders and limited partners of his firm’s funds. The force of passion he brings to the table can only impress that he was born to do this.

There is no debate that Platform Capital is in the first rank of VC companies on the continent.

Its stable of investee companies includes some of the most iconic startups to have come on the scene in the last decade. A peep into its portfolio shows stakes across fintech, distribution, media, healthcare, online travel, blockchain, and more. Beyond funding, Platform opens doors to global networks and top-tier talent hires making all the difference to their growth trajectory.

The firm’s annual Africa Walk is locked on the calendar of leading investors. Since 2021, they have come from around the world to see the reality of Africa for themselves. In between their stay, Platform Capital facilitates meetings with companies in its pipeline.

This, Akindele says, is “the surest way to dispel myths, disprove prevalent misconceptions, and understand the business landscape in Africa better.”

As far back as I can remember Akindele has been a believer in Nigeria’s potential. I cannot recall a single time when he spoke about moving overseas.

Even in our undergrad days under General Abacha’s dictatorship he always told me that Nigeria would work for us.

Back then, I mistook his belief for naïveté. His journey has proved me wrong.

The Duport Midstream refinery is a dream long in the making. As early as 2014, he used to speak about building an integrated petrochemical complex to meet local consumption demand. Whenever I teased him about the boldness of his dream, he would answer “It’s not nuclear physics.”

That dream has become a reality today. This is why I cannot find joy in the boardroom quarrel that risks tearing the company apart.

The strategic importance of Duport Midstream’s refinery is underlined by the fact that it is one of the four functional refineries in the country. Bear in mind that a major cause of Nigeria’s current economic doldrums is the huge portion of its foreign earnings depleted annually for the importation of refined products.

I hold my breath for a quick resolution or speedy adjudication

The allegations raised by Duport Midstream’s directors are weighty ones indeed. I will not dismiss them lightly. Barring an out-of-court settlement, I am doubtful that the courtroom saga will run its full course in a sprint.

Good may yet come out of this. By turning to the courts, clarity will be given over the responsibility of a promoter occupying an executive position, major shareholder control, and the role of non-executive directors. On this subject, I can state with prejudice to none that “All eyes on the judiciary”.

One only prays that the jobs of several hundred workers, livelihoods in the host community, and Investor Confidence Index in Nigeria’s energy industry are not penalized by the hasty crucifixion of one good man.

Onyeaso, is the founder of Customs Street Advisors, a communications consultancy.