The failed Africa LPG summit and implications for Nigeria

The failed Africa LPG Summit is engendering some confidence crisis among the stakeholders in the Liquefied Petroleum Gas  (LPG) subsector of the gas industry. Some of them are lamenting of the derogatory and negative images it has brought to the country and individuals.

They said the actions that led to the failure of the summit will only compound the bad image the country is grappling with across the globe as their business partners overseas may not trust them.

Transacting any business with their partners overseas may be difficult as the LPG players in the Nigerian market may be seen as  fraudulent fellows.

Timely intervention of some stakeholders saved fragile LPG subsector of the gas industry from imploding over alleged scam by a staff of NLPGA. This development may cause a draw back to the successes already achieved in the sector.   However realizing the implications of such crisis in the subsector, some operators decided to make some deft moves to avert the crisis and calmed down nerves among the members of Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers NALPGAM and its sister association NLPGA.

The whole thing started when members Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers NALPGAM), led by it president,.Nosakhare Ogieva-Okunbor  summoned an emergency fact finding mission in Lagos to know why Joseph Eremosele  who is the  executive secretary of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (NLPGA)  allegedly diverted all monies meant for the organization of the 5th Africa LPG Summit 2018 that failed to hold in Lagos last month.

But responding to the issues raised by some of the stakeholders , Felix Ekundayo,  deputy President of  Nigeria Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (NLPGA) told  the audience that  his  association discovered the atrocities committed by the secretary when all the paid participants could not accessed their bookings online and was reported to the association executive

He said that the executives of the association at various meetings asked Joseph Eromosele about the summit, but he was always coming up with excuses.

“When we heard about the issue, we constituted an emergency meeting. Eromosele was immediately cut off from communications, and off all the platforms of the NLPGA, and disclaimers went out”.

“The matter is being pursued by the police,” he added..

The organisers, All Events Group Pte Ltd, in a report made available to  the  NLPGA,  said it staff  were working with Joseph  Eromosele through its director of LPG Summit, Vincent Choy, to organise the summit, which failed to hold as planned.

The reports said the cancelling of the Africa LPG Summit just days before the start of the event has placed enormous financial and reputational losses on the summit and it remains to see if the damage is repairable.

Joseph Eremosele according to report advised  them to apply for a visa on arrival for all the participants for the summit and we submitted applications for over 70 of the participants,” the report stated.

“ Up to the day of our flight, the 15 June 2018, the letter of approval for the visas was not issued and we were forced to cancel our flight.

“We advised all the participants who had been relying on NLPGA to organise the VOA that they were not now going to be available, and we had no option but to cancel the event.

“ Some other exhibitors and speakers who were asked to apply for their own visas because they submitted their application late were able to obtain their visas,’’ the report said.

It also said that the organisers said the President of the NLPGA, Nuhu Yakubu, was unaware that his association (NLPGA) had been working with them as a co-organiser.

The  president of NALGA , Nuhu Yakubu who spoke to BusinessDay said that   what the   executive  secretary   NLPGA  did was pure  fraud and that his case has been  reported to the  Special  fraud   Unit of the  Nigerian  Police. He said that the  executive secretary was dealing with  the organizers  of the  summit  for  almost a year neither  him nor other association  members was  aware  that  the  summit was  going  hold.  He said total amount involved was $ 124,000 and that he has already started paying back.

OLUSOLA  BELLO