JIMOH IBRAHIM’S MEDIA EMPIRE IN CRISIS AS STAFF LEAVE IN DROVES

His businesses are troubled
Numerous staff accuse Mr. Ibrahim of high-handedness.
The media empire of controversial businessman, Jimoh Ibrahim, appears to be in crisis as staff leave his two print platforms, National Mirror and Newswatch, while accusing the owner of high handedness and improper administration.
The exit is more in National Mirror as several management and key editorial staff leave the company in droves, PREMIUM TIMES has learnt. Newswatch recently started daily production after it was acquired by Mr. Ibrahim from its previous owners. It was formerly a weekly magazine.
Sources at the National Mirror told PREMIUM TIMES that the exits, as well as resignations, are a result of the high-handed attitude of Mr. Ibrahim, the Chief Executive Officer of Global Media Mirror, publisher of the newspaper.
But in a swift rebuttal, Mr. Ibrahim told PREMIUM TIMES that all the allegations against him were unfounded, adding that it was normal for people to leave an organization because they won’t “work here forever.”

FIRS QUIZZES JIMOH IBRAHIM OVER TAX EVASION

The Chairman of Global fleets Limited, Mr Jimoh Ibrahim, was on Monday invited by the Federal Inland Revenue Service to offer explanations about the huge tax liabilities of involving his company.The development was confirmed by the DIrector, Communications and Liaison Department of the FIRS, Mr. Emmanuel Obeta.
Emmanuel, who spoke with our correspondent in a telephone interview, stated that contrary to media reports, the businessman was not arrested.
He said, “He was invited by the FIRS to come and make some clarifications regarding issues bordering on tax liabilities.”

NEWSWATCH SUIT: JIMOH IBRAHIM OWES ME N30M, RAY EKPU TELLS COURT

Former Chief Executive Officer of Newswatch Communications Limited, Mr. Ray Ekpu, yesterday, told a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, that only a part of his retirement benefits was paid to him, after Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim acquired majority shares of the company.

At the resumed hearing in the suit by two minority shareholders,  Mr. Nuhu Wada and Prof. Jibril Aminu, who  are challenging the method through which Ibrahim acquired the majority shareholding of the company, Ekpu under cross-examination by Ibrahim’s counsel, said that Ibrahim cheated him by refusing to pay him a balance of N30 million of his retirement benefits.

“The sum of N79 million was paid to me out of N109 million. During his meeting with me and four other directors, he called on the accountant who read the figures to us. The figures were less than what we expected to be paid and we had since submitted our request for regularisation to the board on May 5, 2011.

IF YOU ARE NOT CONTROVERSIAL, YOU WON’T BE SUCCESSFUL — JIMOH IBRAHIM

You’ve done well for yourself. Were you born with a silver spoon?

I must tell you that it’s far from it. My father is a bricklayer, with seven wives as of the time I counted last and well over 40 children. And my mother, leading the team, has six children. We are from Igbotako in Ondo State. There was no way we would have been born with silver spoon in our mouths. Development at a young age was very terrible; terrible in the sense that all the children assembled and ate together, at least from their mother’s side. You put the food at the centre of the table, everybody ate, and the most interesting aspect of it was when we were going to share the fish or meat. The eldest had to pick the meat, cut it with his teeth, suck the juice out of it and pass it to the next person. That person will cut it until it gets to the last person.

SENATE ORDERS CBN TO RECOVER N35.5BN FROM JIMOH IBRAHIM

The Senate yesterday ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to recover its N35.5 billion intervention fund disbursed to Air Nigeria, owned by a business mogul, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim.

The Senate had at its plenary yesterday accused Ibrahim of diverting the fund to finance other concerns other than its original mandate.

These were fallouts of the Senate adoption of the probe report of a joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Aviation, carried out on the fatal air crash involving Dana Airline on June 3, 2012.