Fresh facts have emerged that the feud between Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Base Limited (LADOL) and Integrated Services Nigeria Limited (INTELS) have divided the Presidency as the promoters of both companies have penetrated the top inner recess of power to solicit for support.
While Chief Oladipo Jadesimi is the founder and Executive Chairman of the multi-million naira facility situated adjacent Africa’s largest container terminal and Nigeria’s premier and busiest port, Apapa Quay, INTELS in which former President Atiku Abubakar has substantial equity shares holds sway in the hub of the oil and gas industry, Onne, Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Apart from Onne, INTELS is also the concessionaire of the nation’s seaports situated in the Cross River State capital, Calabar and Warri, Delta State.
It is on record that there is no love lost between both companies as their promoters have continued to flex muscles in a supremacy contest in the maritime industry. While LADOL claimed it has approval of the Federal Government to carry out its business in its present location, a committee set up by the Minister of Transportation, Right Hon. Rotimi Chibike Amaechi has picked holes in the documents presented by the firm.
To ensure that it does not lose out in battle for the soul of the maritime industry, the company has solicited for the support of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo just as INTELS has not relented in its quest to prove a point that LADOL’s operations in Lagos is illegal.
Alleged to be a monopoly by its competitors, the terminal operator is said to be having the listening ears of some close aides of President Mohammadu Buhari.
THISDAY checks revealed that it was the division in the Presidency over LADOL and INTELS feud that was partly responsible for the inability of Amaechi’s committee to make public its findings or take a decision on the matter several months after it completed its assignment. It is not only the Presidency that the lingering rivalry between LADOL and INTELS has succeeded in causing a division as some government agencies are also in support or against either companies.
