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M-TEL: Why CEO, 7 GMs were sacked
Everest Amaefule, Abuja
Fresh facts indicating that the purge at the Nigerian Mobile Telecommunications Limited was the product of personality clash between the chairman of the company, Alhaji Lawal Mohammed and the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Aad Loois have emerged.
The board of the mobile subsidiary of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited had on Wednesday approved the sack of Loois and announced his replacement with the Chief Technical Officer of the company, Mr. Wim Westerink, on acting capacity.
This was followed up on Thursday night with the sack of seven General Managers of the company believed to be loyal to the sacked chief executive officer.
Investigations by our correspondent revealed that there was a major disagreement between the chairman and the CEO that led to the sack of the Dutch chief executive even as there are indications that the decision of the board might be overturned by the Federal Government.
Although Loois refused to speak extensively with our correspondent, he attributed his ouster to �power play� in the company. This is contrary to the reason of poor health of the chief executive which was earlier given by the board.
�Yes there were things the board wanted the management to do which we could not but it happens in other companies. Some times the board wants management to do something they don�t want to do and some times the management wants the board to do something it does not want to do,� Loois said in answer to a question.
He refused to answer other questions put to him by our correspondent because he would not want his comment to �jeopardise the peace process which had been initiated by relevant stakeholders�.
The Minister of Communications, Chief Cornelius Adebayo, who was said to be in the best position to resolve the crisis was away on a foreign trip when the crisis in the company deepened.
He, however, returned to the country on Saturday and confirmed to our correspondent on Sunday that he would �certainly intervene� to resolve the crisis which is threatening to consume more top officials of the company.
�I have just returned from Korea and China and you don�t call for a meeting on Sunday,� he told our correspondent who sought to know how far the peace initiative had gone.
Chairman of the company, Mohammed, was not available for comments as he was said to have traveled out of the country after the meeting of the board on Thursday.
The Punch, Monday September 13, 2004
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