Last Updated Apr 08 2008
Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State and former Governor Peter Odili Start own media empires
Saharareporters, New York
Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State and former Governor Peter Odili of Rivers are in advanced stages of plans to float their own media empires, Saharareporters.com can authoritatively reveal.
Daniel will enter the news business in an ambitious way with the launch of COMPASS media outfit that will include newspapers, radio and television broadcasting.
Last year, the controversial governor of Ogun State was embroiled in an iron rod corruption scandal as well as questionable acquisition of choice real estate in the UK.
A source who is very close to Daniel said the governor’s objective is to launch a media empire that would eclipse other media outfits owned by such former state governors as Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia and Bolaji Tinubu of Lagos. Kalu owns the Sun newspaper while Tinubu is the financier of The Nation. Mr. Daniel's COMPASS outfit will be housed at a multi-billion naira newspaper/radio/TV complex along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway at the Ogun State Property Investment Corporation property. A concerned source told Saharareporters that the governor improperly took over Ogun State land to erect his media empire. The newly completed office complex will house state of the art print and electronic broadcast equipment worth millions of dollars.
Mr. Daniel is a two-time governor whose questionable wealth continues to grow at the expense of the state. He has long been known to use lavish bribes and other inducements to buy the silence of members of the national media. In addition to deploying corrupt means to keep the media silent, Mr. Daniel has also covered up his atrocities by threatening lawsuits against journalists bold enough to expose his corrupt deeds.
Apart from the new multi-billion naira media empire, he is known to have built several five star hotels, engaged in import waiver scams, and acquired a choice gas station while functioning as governor.
Mr. Daniel has recruited Professor Ayo Olukotun, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo, and Biodun Oduwole as top management staff of COMPASS media.
On his part, former Governor Odili has reportedly bought the assets of the defunct Concord Newspaper Group and is in the process of remaking it into a vibrant newspaper to serve his political purposes. The Concord Newspaper Group was owned by the late M.K.O Abiola, who died in detention in 1997 after former dictator Sani Abacha clasped him in jail for pursuing his June 12, 1993 presidential mandate.
Members of Abiola’s family are keeping sealed lips on the nature and value of the deal, which is believed to be in billions of naira.
Odili, whose wife has a reputation as one of the most corrupt justices of the Federal Court of Appeal, recently obtained a perpetual injunction from a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt barring anti-corruption agents from arresting or prosecuting him for corruption. Saharareporters earlier reported that the judge who issued the bizarre order is a friend of the Odilis and was massively bribed.
By acquiring COMPASS and CONCORD, Mr. Daniel and Dr. Odili have positioned themselves to join a growing family of former governors who use their proprietorship of media outfits to whitewash their corrupt images and blackmail anti-corruption agencies.
Such former governors include James Onanefe Ibori of Delta State who owns Daily Independent/Harefe Press, former Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who owns The Nation newspaper and GOTEL Television at the Magodo area of Lagos, ex-governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu who owns the popular tabloid Daily SUN, an outfit whose assets were frozen by the EFCC as the agency commenced Kalu’s trial.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has accused most of the former governors of corrupt enrichment. However, Tinubu and Odili have so far managed to elude being charged in a law court by the agency.