“Lekoil, the oil and gas exploration and production company with a focus on Nigeria and West Africa, announces that it has terminated the employment contract of its CEO, Mr Olalekan Akinyanmi, with immediate effect, due to a corporate governance breach…” These were the opening lines of the statement released by its main branch of the Cayman Islands-registered Lekoil Limited on June 3, 2021. Not long after, the Nigeria branch released a counter statement insisting that Lekan Akinyanmi “remains Lekoil Nigeria CEO.” What gives?
The battle for supremacy in Lekoil is not news.
However, the contest came to a head in April when the company’s Chairman, Michael Ajukwu, suddenly resigned from the chairmanship position. Considering that Ajukwu had been appointed in January and only spent three months in office, it was obvious that the internal struggles in Lekoil had reached the zenith. Or so it was believed. And then the founder was sent packing too!
According to the reports, the press release announcing Akinyanmi’s termination was engineered by South African mining group Metallon Corp, the shareholder with a 40% stake in Lekoil Nigeria accused of being the mastermind behind recent happenings. Metallon Corp has allegedly attempted to take over Lekoil Nigeria but has had to deal with the company founder. Thus, to get a proper foothold, the company supposedly threw out an accusation against Akinyanmi of a ‘corporate governance breach’ and went ahead with its plans.
Recall that Metallon’s problem with Lekoil has been rumoured to be its executive board. The South African company reportedly attempted to increase Lekoil board members from four to seven (to include Metallon’s CEO and two others from the SA company). But Akinyanmi has been fighting against this, seeing that it will give Metallon the upper hand in his company.
Thus, Akinyanmi has been reported as standing against all such and subsequent actions. Furthermore, he has reportedly secured the services of an expert corporate lawyer from the US to diffuse the fires and return orderliness to the boardrooms of Lekoil.
It is still a bit early to divine the end of this matter. Nevertheless, Metallon’s first action to boot out the founder of the company is astounding.
Then again, that is one of the perks of having a 40% equity interest in the company.
