In a bizarre and rambling text message, CEO of Africa Independent Television (AIT) Raymond Dokpesi, announced that he had accepted an offer to be the executive director of the sagging Ibrahim Babangida presidential campaign.
Dokpesi rambled on in his text message to close associates why his new assignment was necessary and why his new boss should be forgiven and given another chance to rule Nigeria.
He then signed off by apologizing to those the former military dictator might have offended, claiming that those decisions were collectively taken by the military.
Although Dokpesi’s acceptance of the leadership of IBB’s crumbling campaign might have shocked some of his friends, Saharareporters has learnt that the so-called “double chief,” who referred to himself as “Ezomo of Weppano kingdom” in the text message, was available to the highest bidder as the fortunes of his media empire had dipped on account of his personal mismanagement and extravagance.
Dokpesi runs the DAAR Group media concerns in several cities across Nigeria, but it is a well-known fact that he has not paid his workers in at least 10 months.
Recently after Saharareporters exposed his anti-labour practices and hostile work place behavior, Dokpesi broke up AIT into semi-autonomous units known as "Special Business Units" and claimed that all staffers would be paid their current salaries and backlog through the SBUs, but apart from the AIT SBU managed by his wife, Tosin, none of the SBUs have paid the staff more than two months in 2010. The backlogs remain unpaid.
Sources told Saharareporters that Dokpesi’s about-face against current president, Goodluck Jonathan, happened for two reasons.
The first is that he found out that despite the public grandstanding, most of the state governors claiming to be in support of Jonathan for the next elections are not really behind him. In fact, in the Southern political block which Jonathan hails from, only the governor of Akwa Ibom state, Godswill Akpabio, can currently be counted as a true supporter of Jonathan. The rest of them are just playing along with the Jonathan team because they do not want Jonathan to set the EFCC upon them.
The second reason is that Dopkesi was reportedly miffed by Jonathan's refusal to pay him a bogus bill he presented to the federal government for purportedly covering the Under-17 football fiesta that took place in Nigeria in 2009. Saharareporters had reported that Dokpesi's sudden embrace of the Save Nigeria Group is motivated by selfishness as it has to do with his desire to get paid for the job he did not do.
In 2009, while Nigeria was about to host the under-17th FIFA soccer fiesta, Dokpesi sent out a glossy proposal to the federal government of Umaru Yar'Adua. The document, titled "DAAR-FIFA HOST BROADCASTER BUDGET presentation," outlined the breakdown of Dokpesi's DAAR communication capability to broadcast the world cup on behalf of FIFA and Nigeria.
However, knowledgeable sources told Saharareporters that despite his pompous presentation of the N5 billion proposal, DAAR communication lacked the capacity to broadcast most of the matches live. It was going to rely on the facilities of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) to carry out its part of the bargain, for which FIFA officials already paid DAAR communication.
Soon as the under-17 World cup was concluded, Dokpesi began visiting Yar'Adua to demand payment for the FIFA-AIT broadcast, but the chair of the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission, Mr. Yomi Bolarinwa, told the presidency the truth about what happened, his advice and full briefing led the late Yar'adua not to approve the payments Dokpesi requested. But Dokpesi went and procured the help of Mr. Jonathan, who was then the Vice President and chair of the local organizing committee of the Under-17 fiesta to prevail on Yar'Adua to approve his bogus payment.
It was not a surprise that Dokpesi provided the expansive conference rooms of his offices for the Save Nigeria Group as they held series of meetings to fight the Yar'Adua cabal. Dokpesi also attended the meeting Jonathan with the group.
Prior to the FIFA money debacle, Dokpesi had flirted with the Yar'Adua regime over the planned demolition of his DAAR Group headquarters in Abuja by the Obasanjo regime. Although the new government wanted to correct some of the vindictive policies of the Obasanjo regime, it soon found out that Chief Dokpesi was in possession of large swathes of prime properties in Abuja that he had illegally or fraudulently acquired. The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory was asked to enter into negotiations with him so as to prevent the seizure of his illegally acquired land and fraudulently built structures which reportedly violated the Abuja masterplan.
It is not known why Jonathan refused to pay off Dokpesi for bogus billing which he had submitted to scam the federal government as about three committees has already been set up to reconcile the accounts submitted by Dokpesi and those of FIFA. A presidency source told Saharareporters that Jonathan has always known that Dokpesi was rooting for Babangida and he delayed the payments because there was nothing to show that AIT did anything for the federal government after several committees looked into his claims.
Knowing that Jonathan was reluctant, Dokpesi was soon to jump from the ship of the Save Nigeria Group as Jonathan did not give the group further attention or audience. Dokpesi quickly sought a spot on another delegation of South-South leaders that met with Jonathan to greet him as the new president. He pressed for the payments, but a delay in realizing his payday again led him to jump ship, according to sources.
Other sources close to Babangida and Dokpesi told Saharareporters that Dopkesi’s “financial success” earlier in life was attributable to the shady dealings that characterized the Babangida years which made billionaires of cronies and errand boys that helped Babangida kill, maim, and milk Nigeria dry until he was finally chased out in 1993 after he annulled the now famous June 12 elections.
Anxious staffers of Mr. Dokpesi are genuinely worried about his shameless decision to work for Babangida, especially as his television station is likely to suffer the consequences owing to the unpopular nature of his chosen candidate. Last week, young people opposed to Babangida began a boycott campaign on Facebook and the earlier assurance Dokpesi gave his staff evaporated when the presenter of one of AIT's most popular program "Focus Nigeria", Mr. Gbenga Aruleba, almost tearfully announced that his 30 minute spot had been replaced by a special program sponsored by Babangida.
