Oando Nigeria Plc, yesterday stated that it has no control over who buys its shares, just as it said that former Governor of Delta State Governor ,Mr. James Ibori lied that he has 30 percent stake in the firm.
Addressing the media, Deputy Group Chief Executive, Mr. Mofe Boyo, said the company has over 300,000 shareholders and as such, does not have any obligation or right to carry out any form of background check on them.
He disclosed that contrary to the widespread belief that Ibori has 30 percent stake in Oando, the ex-Governor only has 443 units of share.
The Oando boss argued that the shareholding structure of the company is a public document available at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) for any interested member of the public to verify.
“The UK Police came to Nigeria during the course of investigation and I believe that they must have gone to NSE for findings but my worry is why they have decided to distort the facts. But as it is, we don’t have a locus standi in this case because we are neither the accused nor defendant, “he said.
At the moment, he said Oando was exploring the option of seeking legal interpretation on how best to seek redress based on the effect of what is going on in the court at the moment.
Oando had in a statement on Monday denied that Ibori owned ‘a large part of Oando’ and that the statement was incorrect and misleading.
“Oando is a publicly traded company listed on the Nigerian and Johannesburg Stock Exchanges and does not and cannot control the trading in its securities on the floor of the respective exchanges. Based on our current shareholding register, Mr. James Ibori’s shareholding stands at 443 shares out of a total issued and paid up share capital of 6.8 billion ordinary shares, which is clearly insignificant, and cannot be considered as ‘a large part of Oando,”the company said
Oando also stated that it does accept that sometime in 2004, in the normal course of its business, it sold about $2.7 million for naira and the recipient of the US Dollars was a company which has now turned out to be one controlled by James Ibori.
The statement explained further that at the time of the transaction, this information was unknown to Oando while the total amount was US$2.7 million made in 3 separate transactions over a period of about 7 months. This amount, it said was insignificant considering the company’s turnover of approximately US$800million in 2004.
“The above constitutes the only transactions between Oando and any company controlled by Mr. Ibori. Consequently, Oando cannot be described as a company where James Ibori has hidden assets as a result of these foreign exchange transactions,” the statement said. 