Intels: Atiku abandons company, blames Buhari’s ‘war on business’
Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has sold off his shares in Integrated Logistics Services (Intels) Limited.
This was confirmed in a statement by his media aide, Paul Ibe, titled “Atiku redirects his investment in Intels”.
The statement was issued on Monday.
Ibe explained that one of the reasons Atiku sold his shares was the preoccupation of the Muhammadu Buhari government with the destruction of legitimate businesses.
“Co-founder of Integrated Logistics Services Nigeria Limited (Intels), Atiku Abubakar, has been selling his shares in Intels over the years,” the statement read.
“It assumed greater urgency in the last five years, because this Government has been preoccupied with destroying a legitimate business that was employing thousands of Nigerians because of politics.
“He has sold his shares in Intels and redirected his investment to other sectors of the economy for returns and creation of jobs. There should be a marked difference between Politics and Business.”
In 2017, the federal government directed the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to terminate its pilotage contract with Intels.
Citing reasons for the contract termination, the NPA alleged that Intels refused to get on the Treasury Single Account (TSA) platform.
The resulting feud, Punch reported, brought the majority shareholder in Intels, Gabrielle Volpi, to Nigeria, where he apologised to the federal government and pledged his firm’s commitment to transfer all the revenue collected from the boats monitoring and supervision services in Nigerian maritime waters to the TSA with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Later in December 2017, there were reports that NPA had resolved the dispute with the logistics giant.
But in May 2019, news broke that NPA had once again cancelled the pilotage contract, citing Intels’ failure to remit $145.84 million being outstanding service boat revenue generated from November 1, 2017, to October 31, 2018.
The NPA, in a letter to the logistics giant, accused it of failing to remit $55.72m, which it pledged to remit in a letter dated February 12, 2019, and $145.84m, which the NPA demanded via various letters.
In its defence, Intels reportedly denied the outstanding sum of $145.84m while adding that its pledge to pay the sum of $55.70m as revenue for the period from November 1, 2017, to March 31, 2019, was predicated on NPA’s payment of $19.67m.
NPA has, however, denied that its action was politically motivated and stemming from the feud between the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, who is a shareholder in Intels, and the President Buhari.
