Latest / DidiLawren / Sujimoto, The Enugu State Government & 5.5 Billion Naira Smart Schools Fraud

Transcript

Sujimoto, The Enugu State Government & 5.5 Billion Naira Smart Schools Fraud · DidiLawren

• 0:04
  Hello and welcome back to the episode of Banton Lorenzi.
• 0:06
  How are you all doing up? You're doing great.
• 0:08
  For today's episode, I want to talk about the drama between
• 0:11
  Enugu State government and contractor Suji Motors.
• 0:15
  Now these two people, they've been, they've been battling this
• 0:19
  on social media. The Enugu State government or
• 0:22
  governor has had a reported Suji Motors to the EFCC.
• 0:27
  The ESCC declared Suji Motors wanted over the construction
• 0:33
  project. He was supposed to build about
• 0:35
  20 or 22 smart schools for the Enable state government.
• 0:41
  The contract was about 11 billion naira, which he was paid
• 0:46
  5.5 billion to initiate and start construction.
• 0:51
  But Sujimoto had other plans because according to Let me just
• 0:55
  give you a bit of background about Sujimoto, so that maybe
• 0:57
  that will help you to understand the kind of, you know, character
• 1:02
  we're dealing with. Sujimoto said he travelled.
• 1:04
  I don't even know where he went to.
• 1:06
  Was it Paris or France? Whatever where he went to, he
• 1:09
  was there. He said he learned construction
• 1:12
  from there. He the person he lent on that,
• 1:16
  although he According to him he was not paid, but when the the
• 1:21
  Sultan or Emiya died, they gave him billions they awarded or he
• 1:27
  left billions to him. So that was how allegedly or
• 1:32
  according to Sujimoto, he was able to bring a lot of money
• 1:35
  back to Nigeria to invest. Now, if you ask some other
• 1:38
  people, they said that Sujimoto was involved in a whole lot of
• 1:43
  different criminal activities abroad.
• 1:46
  He made a whole lot of money. And then to, you know, money
• 1:50
  laundering, he took all this money back to Nigeria.
• 1:53
  But he needed to explain how he got those monies.
• 1:55
  And the only explanation he could come up with was that he
• 1:58
  inherited the money from a dead, a dead billionaire, OK, 'cause
• 2:05
  he once he's dead, how can you verify?
• 2:08
  You can't verify any of those things, but that was the case.
• 2:12
  He came into Nigeria, he was popping champagne, he built a
• 2:16
  name for himself. He said he was into luxury
• 2:21
  construction, but Suji Motors, he was going around raising
• 2:25
  money. You know Nigerians, if you want
• 2:27
  to raise money, you have to show that you have money.
• 2:30
  So he was going to clubs, popping champagne, spending
• 2:33
  money, people investing. He was trying to raise funds for
• 2:37
  his business. He raised a whole lot of money,
• 2:39
  people investing in dollars, people investing in naira.
• 2:43
  At some point, some people gave him millions of dollars, I think
• 2:48
  one point, something million of dollars to start a project in
• 2:52
  Nigeria. The person or the the people or
• 2:56
  the company or the entity that gave him that money.
• 2:59
  They are currently in court because Sujimoto is yet to
• 3:03
  deliver allegedly any of those construction work.
• 3:07
  But Sujimoto will come out and tell you that he is he's a
• 3:11
  construction guru. He learns his trade in wherever
• 3:15
  he said he learned his from North Nigeria and he's he was a
• 3:20
  larger than life kind of personality.
• 3:23
  Now, the Enugu State government wanting to build a smart school,
• 3:26
  contracted Sujimotos. I don't know if there was a
• 3:29
  bidding, I don't know how the procurement process worked, but
• 3:33
  the contract was awarded to Sujimotos.
• 3:35
  According to Sujimotos, he said that it was skyscrapers that
• 3:40
  that his specialities are skyscrapers, which he said he's
• 3:43
  done in Lagos but when he went to NGU State to see the
• 3:49
  government, he thought he was going to build skyscrapers but
• 3:54
  they told him that they wanted smart schools in Angu States.
• 3:58
  They told him that if he completed that project, they
• 4:01
  will give him more contracts, which is the skyscraper,
• 4:05
  according to Suji Motors. So he said the 11 billion will
• 4:10
  not be enough to build the 20 Smart School.
• 4:14
  But they told him that oh, you know, he should do it.
• 4:17
  He may not make profits from this one, but the next contract
• 4:20
  is going to make a whole lot of money.
• 4:22
  Sujimoto said he agreed started. He said he brought about 47 or
• 4:27
  50 contractors to any good state to start the project.
• 4:31
  But he said the end of he had problems with the the state
• 4:36
  government or the state whatever the contract stalled the end of
• 4:43
  the state government. That contract was awarded to him
• 4:46
  two years ago, which was supposed to the kids for the
• 4:49
  smart school. They were supposed to move into
• 4:51
  the smart school this September. So when they checked, they
• 4:55
  realised that all some of the sites that Sujimoto that
• 5:00
  actually worked on were just foundation level.
• 5:03
  Sujimoto had just done maybe a couple of schools or a couple of
• 5:08
  buildings on foundation level and this was somebody that was
• 5:13
  paid 5.5 billion naira. Now the Enigma State government
• 5:20
  because one of the guarantee for the contract was a bond.
• 5:24
  Now they went to the bank to get the bond to say OK this person
• 5:28
  is has defaulted in the contract, give us our money.
• 5:32
  Now they went there and they realised that the money was
• 5:34
  actually paid through a different bank which then made
• 5:38
  that contract with that bank bank which they had the bond
• 5:42
  invalid. Now they started chasing
• 5:44
  Sujimotos. They said OK come and explain
• 5:47
  yourself what is going on. Sujimotos declined the
• 5:52
  invitation of the Eco State government.
• 5:54
  They were forced to now take the whole matter to EFCCEFCC invited
• 5:58
  Sujimotos. Sujimotos declined the
• 6:02
  invitation from the EFCCEFCC, then had to declare Sujimotos
• 6:08
  wanted. And once that was done,
• 6:10
  Sujimotos came out and started crying crocodile tears.
• 6:13
  And even before then there was this guy Scott Imasuen.
• 6:17
  He's always online calling out rogue real estate agents or room
• 6:23
  developers, property developers who he says sells receipts
• 6:28
  instead of lands to people. He had several times called out
• 6:33
  suji motos for defrauding people, for not paying workers,
• 6:37
  for taking monies and at that point when he collected the
• 6:42
  money from Angus State government, that was when Scott
• 6:45
  was calling him out online and he was owing billions.
• 6:49
  So what Soji Motors did was taking the Angus State money for
• 6:56
  the Smart School to settle his debts.
• 6:58
  It's just like a Ponzi scheme, using another person's money to
• 7:01
  pay this other person. At the end of the day you are
• 7:04
  not getting anything done. So he used that money to pay.
• 7:09
  Now when he was declared wanted a lot of people he was crying.
• 7:13
  He made a video crying that the reason why he didn't deliver on
• 7:19
  the project was because raw materials increased everything
• 7:23
  increased dollar went up so he couldn't complete the schools.
• 7:28
  And with state government released pictures and videos of
• 7:32
  the foundation level schools that he claimed that because of
• 7:36
  the raw materials, OK, you're building a smart school.
• 7:40
  It's just block and cement. Am I or am I missing something?
• 7:44
  You've not added, let's say, OK, you've built the schools and
• 7:48
  maybe the, the, the interior decorations or whatever that
• 7:53
  will make you smart. It's what you're still trying to
• 7:57
  get. And maybe this, this will cost
• 8:01
  in dollars and maybe you've, that was why they paid you half,
• 8:05
  maybe half of that money was to sort out the construction and
• 8:09
  then the other half is to maybe furnish the school and make it
• 8:13
  smart. Sujimoto's could not deliver one
• 8:18
  single building. Everything was on foundation
• 8:24
  level. So this whole conversation
• 8:26
  started. Some people were talking about
• 8:28
  it in terms of emotions. Some people said that the
• 8:32
  problem is stuff from Suji Motors is from any good state
• 8:34
  government because they should have known giving a an
• 8:38
  individual that kind of project or maybe telling him to do maybe
• 8:43
  1 as a, as a prototype and then using that one to determine if
• 8:47
  he can actually do the job. But people said that in the
• 8:50
  state government, we are allegedly trying to cut corners.
• 8:53
  That was why they awarded the contract to Suji Motors.
• 8:56
  And Suji Motors being, you know, the smart Yahoo guy was trying
• 9:02
  to play a smartphone on the University of Government.
• 9:04
  And then, you know, we're here. We're here today.
• 9:09
  But I think what happened here is procurement gone wrong.
• 9:13
  Most times during procurement, people bid for contract, people
• 9:18
  bid for projects and for you to award a yes, you know, people
• 9:24
  bid at a lower rate just to make sure that they secure the
• 9:28
  contract. And this is where not just the
• 9:31
  procurement itself, but the contracts of that procurement is
• 9:35
  water tight. Because if I put out a project
• 9:40
  to say I want people to bid to build a house or build whatever,
• 9:48
  and then people are bidding and I see the lowest, I know
• 9:55
  probably I have a rough idea of how much it's going to cost me
• 9:57
  to or you must have done some kind of feasibility study on
• 10:02
  that. If you have an idea of how much
• 10:06
  it will cost, but somebody is bringing a lower bid and then
• 10:10
  you're trying to save money and you go for that lower bid, your
• 10:14
  contract needs to be watertight because you know that there's a
• 10:19
  possibility they're going to employ cheap labour.
• 10:24
  Something's got to give. Yes, maybe they may be kind of a
• 10:29
  new company who is just trying to use that to gain experience,
• 10:33
  but you have to make sure that's OK before you they have to be
• 10:35
  payment. That's why they have payment
• 10:37
  milestones. You have to check and you have
• 10:40
  to have a project manager on ground to make sure that's OK.
• 10:45
  If they're building the first level or let's say the
• 10:47
  foundation, every material or how the building is done, that
• 10:51
  is done up to quality and standard, an agreed standard.
• 10:57
  So if that everything is put in place, the foundation is done,
• 11:01
  then there's a payment milestone for let's say, I don't know,
• 11:06
  lentil level or whatever level that you have to.
• 11:09
  There has to be a payment milestones.
• 11:11
  In this case, if it's 22 or 20 buildings, how about payment
• 11:16
  milestone for each building? If you answer, oh, you know that
• 11:21
  will take time, How about 5? How many buildings can you do at
• 11:25
  a time? Contract is one of the most
• 11:28
  important thing in project management.
• 11:30
  But even much more important is the procurement of that
• 11:34
  contract. Because I worked in a project
• 11:39
  where because as a project manager, you just get assigned
• 11:42
  to a project to say OK, manage this project or manager project.
• 11:46
  We got into this project. The contract was a shit show.
• 11:51
  So I think the Nagu State government did not do due
• 11:54
  diligence because if they had paid more attention on the
• 11:57
  procurement, not just the procurement and the contract,
• 12:00
  then maybe they wouldn't have chosen Sujimoto or maybe they
• 12:04
  wouldn't have paid Sujimoto 5.5 billion naira, half of the the
• 12:10
  money and then Sujimoto is not delivering anything.
• 12:13
  But what do you think? Do you think that the blame is
• 12:15
  with Nagu state government for even trusting Sujimoto without
• 12:19
  doing due diligence, without checking, fact checking his
• 12:23
  story of somebody gifting him money and then he's a luxury
• 12:29
  real estate developer. What do you think that
• 12:32
  Sujimoto's, if he had, he wasn't looking at or he wasn't looking
• 12:38
  into the future to think, OK, if I had done government contract,
• 12:42
  there's a possibility if I had done it and delivered, maybe
• 12:47
  other states would have contracted me to do smart
• 12:49
  schools or to build smart schools.
• 12:52
  Did he do you think that he missed out on that opportunity
• 12:54
  or do you think that the state government were just looking for
• 12:59
  escape goods? Let me know what you think.
• 13:03
  Thank you very much for watching today's episode.
• 13:04
  Please like, like, like and share.
• 13:06
  Thank you very much for watching.
• 13:07
  Bye bye.