CRISIS HITS JIMOH IBRAHIM'S CONGLOMERATE AS HIS KEY WOMEN RESIGN

Jimoh Ibrahim

-Ophelia Attobrah Resigns As Energy Bank ED, May Spill The Beans on Ibrahim's Kangaroo Banking Tactics in Ghana
-Ibilola Adefope, Tayo Olubokun, Lara Alabi Also Resign
-How Seun Adebayo Was Dumped and Sacked
-Why Kafila Ogbara May Be Sacked Too



 Global Fleet Group, the conglomerate owned by Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim, the maverick billionaire, politician and self-acclaimed corporate surgeon, is currently swimming in crisis. The conglomerate is being hit by a gale of resignation, that has resulted in five of the female Chief Executive Officers leaving the group. 

 

Ophelia Attobrah

Last week, Ophelia Attobrah, an Executive Director of Ibrahim’s Energy Bank in Ghana, resigned. Attobrah, whose resignation has thrown the bank into crisis, left when she got wind of the fact that Ibrahim might send her on a spurious long course just to deal with her.

The ELITES gathered that the relationship between Ibrahim and the 52-
year-old, London-trained banker had gone sour in June when Attobrah joined her boss at Oxford University in the United Kingdom for a sandwich course in management. At the programme, she allegedly introduced Ibrahim as her colleague instead of her boss, a development that infuriated him.
The two left the UK with silent hostility, it was learnt.
But as a Ghanaian and the powerhouse in Energy Bank, Ghana, Attobrah knew she could neither be sacked nor suspended on flimsy grounds. Sources disclosed that Attobrah had always shielded the bank from the prying eyes of regulators who had long suspected that it had compliance issues. Ibrahim reportedly got the bank’s licence through former former President of Ghana, Prof. Attah Mills, whose election he allegedly, co-funded with $1 million. However, the incumbent President of Ghana, John is said not to be so disposed to Ibrahim’s “excesses and kangaroo banking tactics”.
But the regulators, it was learnt, could not wield the big stick 
because Attobrah was the go-between. However, the Ghanaian lady had to resign after one Queeneth, who hitherto was the Chief Executive Officer of Ibrahim’s Energy Investments in Accra, Ghana, was redeployed to the bank as ED Operations. That was said to have happened at about the same time Ibrahim instructed the Managing Director of Energy Bank, Sam Ayininuola, to recommend Attobrah for an extended course abroad.
Attobrah, not being on good terms with Ayininuola, knew the game was to send her on a wild goose chase and make her redundant. She tendered her resignation.

Ibilola Adefope

Attobrah is the most powerful of Ibrahim's women, and probably one of the most brilliant and truly qualified in the conglomerate. The Nigerian staff in Energy




Bank called her Ofili Ganga, more for her closeness to Ibrahim, than for her mammary endowment. But like others before her, she has fallen for his proverbial forbidden fruit without realising that all that glitters in Ibrahim's world is not gold. Although Attobrah is married, her husband lives in the United States.
Ophelia's three-year reign at Energy bank came as a shock to staff in the group who considered her as powerful and untouchable, due to her closeness to Ibrahim. Sources say she was responsible for the disgraceful 2012 sack of Isaac Monehin, Ibrahim's childhood friend who was an ED like Attobrah. It was learnt that Monehin was considered by Ibrahim to return to the bank after Attobrah's Oxford faux pas infuriated him, but he had to back down on the thought

Seun Adebayo

due to the impression that his reinstatement might create in the minds of Ghanaian bank regulators and media. The resignation of Attobrah was said to have created panic in the establishment as there is the fear that regulators may now be unleashed on the bank. Sources claimed that there is a growing fear that Attobrah may spill the beans on her former boss' kangaroo banking tactics in Ghana. 
This has also led to a crisis of confidence not just among the staff but also the banking public.
Until her resignation last April, Ibilola Adefope held the position of General Counsel, Daily Newswatch, a subsidiary of Global Fleet Group. The ELITES gathered that Adefope premised her decision to quit on personal reasons. Sources disclosed that Adefope has since taken up a job with the Lagos State Government.
Adefope is a lawyer with 31 years experience in research, consulting and advising on general legal matters. She is a graduate of the University of London, and an award winning pro-active individual with strong leadership qualities and excellent communication skills. She has held management positions in several organisations including law firms and newspaper firms. 

Kafilat Ogbara

Another of Ibrahim's women, Tayo Olubokun, has also dumped the beleaguered conglomerate. She was a staff of Air Nigeria but has been tossed around different subsidiaries in Nigeria and Ghana before deciding to choose a happy home (she recently got married) over Ibrahim's job. 

Then in addition to Olubokun, another of Ibrahim's women that has gone is Lara Alabi, the fiery recalcitrant lady that left sour taste in the mouths of staff in Mirror, Daily Newswatch and the VGC hotel where she worked between 2011 and June when Jimoh eventually fired her. Alabi was the horsewhip, with which Jimoh chastised management of companies and was, sometimes, more powerful than even a CEO. She was described as being cantankerous, uncontrollable and impossible. Alabi, reportedly, typified the debased values in Ibrahim's conglomerate, where subordinates are openly encouraged by the Chairman/ GMD to send incriminating text messages on their superiors. Sources disclosed that she outdid everybody, sending up to thirty spurious text messages to Jimoh a day. She had survived a suspension once, while she was a GM at Daily Newswatch, but her end finally came in June when Jimoh booted her out disgracefully.
Seun Adebayo who once wielded enormous power within Ibrahim's conglomerate, has also taken her leave. Until her unceremonious exit, Seun, an ex-banker, was the General Manager of the group’s hotel and hospitality company in Lagos. She prided herself in having edged out the other contenders with her, to the throne. Seun signed Ibrahim's cheques and handled most of his transactions. And she was usually, openly at war with other female members in the system. Her massive pimples notwithstanding, her assets are her voluptuous hips and easy disposition to tears.Sources disclosed that Seun acted with spousal impunity. Once she suspected that her boss had shown interest in any of her subordinates, she would find a way to get her sacked. She monitored other female staff that visited Ibrahim's office upstairs through CCTV and acted like the hotel was her territory. And she always boasted about her stronghold on Ibrahim. However, when it was her time to leave came, she was given two hours to leave the hotel, without the manual-gear Piccanto car she had thought would ultimately belong to her.
There are strong indications that the affection between Ibrahim and Kafilat Ogbara may have been fractured. The billionaire politician and self-acclaimed corporate surgeon, is reported to be making some moves to send Ogbara packing from his conglomerate, except of course, she reads the writing on the wall and resigns honourably. Ogbara, the politician who was brought in late last year, is said to have run into some difficulties with her boss, owing to what sources attributed to her ‘greed, ignorance and unprofessional conducts.’
Ogbara’s undoing, according to sources was the “big fight” she had with one Betiku, believed to be Ibrahim’s errand boy in Ogbese, Ondo State over advert commission.
Indeed, many sources within the company disclosed that Ogbara is notorious for struggling for and in fact, cornering advert commission meant for advert staff, editors and outstation correspondents. The action, they claimed is fast depleting the revenue base of the company as most staff, including those in Advert and Special Project Department no longer see advert sourcing as any incentive.
Part of the strategy to ease out Ogbara, whom many staff believes lacked the competences and guts required to push the Mirror brand, owing largely to her extremely low profile in the media space because she is more of a politician than administrator, was the recent appointment of Sunday Olajide, former title editor with the Tribune newspapers who incidentally was sacked few months ago. Close aides of Ogbara revealed that recent development in Ibrahim's conglomerate is not what she bargained for, more so, Ibrahim was said to have announced on Tuesday, the suspension of subvention to the media group. This ugly development is said to have forced Ogbara to consider going back to politics.
Findings made by The ELITES revealed that it is notonly Ibrahim's hitherto cherished women that are finding their way out, the men too are also leaving his conglomerate. One of the male CEOs in the group, Adesoye Adekoya, who was in charge of Ibrahim's Energy Press Limited, also tendered his resignation on Monday after series of frustrations getting the brash billionaire to attend to the company's needs.