Adesoji Ogungbesan

The last may not have been heard of the level of wastefulness, stealing, corruption and ineptitude bedeviling Nigeria Security, Printing and Minting company, as information has revealed that the Acting Director Corporate Services, Mr Adesoji Ogungbesan cornered a staggering  Eighty Six Million Naira (N86,000,000) to buy 100 pieces of Rat Gum as seen in the pictures. This is the latest of the untamed stealing that has characterised the current management staff, whose ineptitude is fast rendering the company near-moribund.

Recall that more than 200 staff of the company were pressed into involuntary resignation over the dwindling fortunes of the company.  A move Mr Adesoji claimed was a cost-cutting exercise.  A source who spoke to LeadingReporters on condition of anonymity revealed that MINT, as it stands now, is bereft sense of direction, despite the efforts of the Central Bank of Nigeria governor at repositioning the corruption-infested government company.

The source, one of the coerced early retirement victims, said that MINT will soon become a company no progressive-minded person would desire to work in.  He attributed the current abysmal status of the company to the activities, ineptitude and overzealousness of the Acting Corporate Services Director, Mr Adesoji Ogungbesan and his clique in the company.

“MINT, as it stands now, prints and imports over 70% of the Nigerian currency from Europe.  The staff welfare is nothing to write home about. Most staff now house themselves in the factory and only go home on weekends due to transportation challenges.  Their morale is at the lowest level, and they are not going to take it lightly again, from the information we gathered. Do not be surprised if you hear about a showdown between the management and the staff soon.

The source said that the corruption is so untamed, and the company owner, the Central Bank of Nigeria, has been making frantic efforts at redirecting the affairs of MINT in a productive and profit-oriented direction, a move that has repeatedly boomeranged owing to vested interests in the company.

“Mr Adesoji Ogungbesan and a few other management staff were brought to the company by elements in CBN.  We understood that one of the aides to a deputy governor of CBN brought him through the backdoor. He was interviewed for a lesser position, but suddenly, he was placed in the position of acting executive director.  He does things his way and rebuffs everyone.  He claims he is a product of “Aso Rock” and cannot be touched. That could have been why the CBN Governor, Dr Olayemi Cardoso, is helpless under the circumstances.

Meanwhile, LeadingReporters investigation has revealed that the rat gum project was one of the many avenues used by Adesoji to siphon money from the coffers of the company.

“I just heard about it.  Unfortunately, that is how heartless the new management has become.  Wasting resources at the expense of the staff who toil under horrible work conditions.  We lost more than 200 staff recently who got fed up with suffering and left the company.  I think the rat gum is the smallest of the brazen embezzlements that the subject person and his co-travelers, popularly known in MINT as the “Villa Boys”, are perpetrating in MINT.