Fraud Is Not Exclusive To Nigerians

Integrity has different meaning to different people. But for Dr. Olu Adeleye, Executive Chairman, Daid Nig Ltd, “it is all-encompassing. I would say it is about one’s character and name. When you say a thing, you must carry it out and you must always ask yourself whether what you are doing is right or good to others. The totality of this forms character upon which integrity is built.”

According to him, integrity starts from the home. A father who makes false promises to his wife and children, he stressed, does not have integrity just as man who pays gratification to examiners to secure good grades for his children.On how integrity applies in business, he stated that any businessman, who compromises and gives gratification to people in the company he supplies goods to, lacks integrity, neither is one who gives gratification to the accountant before his cheque is released.

He added, “if others are cutting corners to get rich quick and are bringing in fake and adulterated products and you join the crowd, you are not a man of integrity, so, saying no to evil things and yes to the right things in business is integrity and you must not promise what you can’t deliver.”

Adeleye, who argued that fraud is not exclusive to the Nigerian or the black man, declared that it is an international issue since it is in Europe, Asia, America and every other place. He saw greed as the major reason why whites fall to scammers insisting that those who are defrauded are themselves rogues. He said it is only a rogue that will get a letter informing him of the existence of money from a contract not executed and that he should cooperate in the release of the money at an agreed sharing ratio and he will be ready to do so. In his own case, it is the white man that duped him. According to him, there was a foreign company that they did business with but which refused to pay them the agreed commission. Also, he said he experienced it again when he sent his proposed successor to a company abroad for training but to his utter dismay, the company snatched the man and started doing business with him, yet, millions has been expended on the man’s training for the 18 months. He thus declared; “if there are bad Nigerians, there are equally bad white people. Remember, crime and criminality are English words, so it stated from their shores”.

However, he decried the way Nigerian businessmen dupe their overseas business partners ascribing it to greed. Reflecting on the good old days when Nigeria was the delight of the western countries for doing business, he stated that then, Nigerians were allowed to take goods on credit and later pay. He however regretted that this is not so again because many Nigerian businessmen had taken goods and sent their obituaries to the foreign partners instead of the money when it was time to pay. However, the foreign partners later got to know that they were still living.

Asked if he had suffered any embarrassment because of the image problem Nigeria has abroad, he replied in the affirmative stating that he was once thoroughly searched in Britain because of the perceived to be carrying hard drugs. He said he was not allowed to leave the airport for over two hours. “On request for explanation for the embarrassment, I was told that they arrest at least two Nigerians everyday who carried drugs. And I told them that if their people were not taking the drugs, nobody will bring it into their country”.

Adeleye commended the efforts of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu at the EFCC, saying he performed wonderfully in fighting economy crimes in the country and restoring Nigeria’s battered image abroad. It is for this reason that he is at a loss as to why he is being hounded and humiliated by the federal government. Describing it as sad, he said the man deserved to be honoured instead of the treatment he is presently getting. Giving an assessment of the EFCC as at today, he said it is highly compromised and will not achieve anything.

Adeleye is of the belief that homes rather than religious organizations have the greatest role to play in solving the problem of crime in Nigeria. He contended that if the home is alive to its responsibilities we won’t be having the crimes we are having. The pastor on the pulpit comes from a home. If he has not developed the right character from home, he cannot preach the right things. A pastor who doesn’t take care of his home so much so that his daughters are prostituting to survive can not preach any morals. Some pastors are morally bankrupt and are not called by God but by their bellies”.

The Daid boss, who confessed that doing business in those days is easier and better than now, has been a beacon of integrity in all his life and this has been what propelled him to the height he is today. When he was to star the company in 1990, he had to take a short-term credit facility of 25, 000 pounds. Being conscious of the fact that the foreign partners were dealing with them with suspicion because of the image problem Nigeria already has, he set out to make a difference. So as he sold the goods, he remitted money to his creditors and within a space of four years, he got all debt liquidated. The company, which imports spare parts for Nigerian industries, is today manufacturing same locally with the construction of its own factory in Nigeria.