Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Jimoh Ibrahim......A businessman or an autocrat?



Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim has resurfaced in the news once again and as expected, the subject of debate has generated so much ripple which has once again brought a pertinent question to the fore.....Is he actually a businessman or an autocrat?  I am sure it is no longer news that he recently suspended the operations of Air Nigeria which I believe didn’t come as a surprise to many Nigerians. This is due to the fact that he has become popular for shutting down businesses under the flimsiest excuse.

I am beginning to feel that anything Jimoh Ibrahim touches becomes history.....from Global Fleet {Energy} to Newswatch Magazine and now Air Nigeria, only God knows which corporate body is next in line. A friend even joked that if he becomes the owner of Google Inc, the site Google will start asking questions instead of answering them.

The same man who at one time made a statement and I quote: “Corporations are like individuals who naturally will get sick; the usual thing to do is to admit them in hospitals either for corporate surgery or for treatment as the case may be. I am a corporate surgeon”.  From a lay man’s point of view, the point he must have been trying to make here is that he is a solution provider to any ailing corporate body but his actions so far has proven to us that he prefers a shutdown approach to proffering solutions. Come to think of it, a surgeon is expected to carry out surgeries in order to save lives and relating it to the statement Barrister Ibrahim made sometimes ago, we will naturally expect him to be the life saver of an ailing business as a against the shutter of corporations he has turned out to become. 

My question is ‘How does Jimoh Ibrahim keep emerging as the MD/CEO of huge Nigerian companies’? How come he feels that cutting the head is the solution to having headache? I for one honestly believe that an autocratic way of handling businesses is responsible for the rise and fall of the companies Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim have handled at some point in time or another.
The most recent and embarrassing was the ordeal of over 190 Air Nigeria
passengers who arrived Gatwick Airport, England on Saturday 8th of September, 2012 at about 8.30am. The passengers who had earlier bought flight tickets to Nigeria got to the airport with the intention of boarding but were embarrassingly delayed for about eight hours after which they were all informed of lack of fuel to fly the aircraft and were asked to contribute the sum of 40pounds each for the purchase of aviation fuel needed to fly them to Nigeria. Eventually, the plane left Gatwick airport at about 4.30pm, arrived Nigeria at 12.30am. To the passengers’ amazement, they were informed to come back for their luggage.

As it is, just a handful of Air Nigeria staffs were retained and constituted with the responsibility of looking into the crisis so as to come up with a better work frame to help them achieve their set targets in the nearest future. Every other members of staff has been relieved of their duties and it may interest you to know that the airline has suspended its flights {Local and International} for the next one year due to management itches. All customers who had earlier purchased air tickets are to contact their travel agents and get a refund of their money.

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