The retired partners of KPMG who are still awaiting their gratuity and pension did not read the invitation to Cambridge University for “BLACK FRIDAY” properly. We thought it was going to be a “Black Tie” Dinner at Magdalene College (which was founded in 1428) to celebrate twenty years of Nelson Mandela studentships at the college and that our host would be The Most Reverend (Dr.) Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, and his charming wife Baroness Hilary Jane Williams.
Williams is still being celebrated for the speech he delivered in 2011 while he was the Archbishop of Canterbury. Rowan Williams was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury from which he retired in December 2012.
We were wrong on both counts! We were not only at the wrong venue but also guests of a different host. Alas, it turned out to be an entirely private initiative by our professional colleague Malcolm Wellington-Piggott, who studied medicine at Trinity College, Cambridge University, before switching to accountancy only to promptly give up the prospect of becoming a partner at KPMG. Instead, he now runs the family business with massive investments in banking, brewery, real estate, Information Technology and everything else.
Anyway, we were handed the following front page report by Sunday Sun newspaper by Malcolm (with Richard Quest of CNN as the anchorman): Headline: “21 Striking Coal Miners Killed In Enugu By British Police In 1949”: “It will be 66 years on November 18, 2015 when armed British colonial police opened fire on defenceless coal miners in the Iva Valley mine in Enugu, capital of former Eastern Region. In those moments of collective colonial insanity, the colonialists within minutes murdered 21 Nigerian workers and injured 51 others. The workers were attacked for daring to go on a strike which the colonial authorities interpreted as a political strike designed to pressurise them to quit the country and let Nigeria join other nations that were free from colonial rule. A political scientist, Richard L. Sklar, wrote on the significance of the strike thus: ‘Historians may conclude that the slaying of the coal miners by police at Enugu first proved the subjective reality of a Nigerian nation. No previous event ever evoked a manifestation of national consciousness comparable to the indignation generated by this tragedy.’”
This was not what we bargained for at all. To make matters worse and even more dismal, the whole of Cambridge was under thick fog on Friday, 30th October, 2015. As if to further compound our misery, the front page news in virtually all the UK newspapers was the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria’s (FRCN) indictment and sanction of Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc.
The Financial Times and the other papers were thoroughly professional because alongside the statement issued by FRCN, they published the rejoinder by the bank, “Stanbic IBTC Holdings meets disclosure requirements of International Financial Reporting Standards”, in which the bank stated, inter alia: “Stanbic IBTC is a very responsible organisation and fully complies with all extant laws and regulations in Nigeria and international best practices applicable to the conduct of its business. It is the only Nigerian bank that is AAA rated by Fitch. It has met the disclosure requirements of Nigerian law and International Financial Reporting Standards applicable in Nigeria. Contrary to the media reports, the books of Stanbic IBTC have been fully disclosed and provide a true and fair view of its assets and liabilities, profits and losses, and its overall financial position…. Stanbic IBTC would like to reiterate that it will continue to conduct its business in compliance with extant Nigerian law and international best practices.”
Also, in order to properly reflect a “true and fair view”, they provided space for the official statement of KPMG Nigeria (formerly Arthur Andersen).
Matters were properly rounded off by the publication in full of the official statement of the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria: “CBN’s Regulatory Decision in the Matter of Financial Statements of Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc for Years Ended 31st December 2013 and 2014”.
This provided a respite and breathing pace to focus on an item from the archives of Magdalene College, Cambridge University: In a speech on December 4, 1949, Nnamdi Azikiwe called for independence before a political rally sponsored by West African Students Union of Great Britain and Ireland (Cambridge University chapter) to protest the shooting of 21 striking Nigerian coal miners. Azikiwe said, “The people of Nigeria cannot continue to accept as their destiny the denial of human rights. We, too, have a right to live, to enjoy freedom, and to pursue happiness like other human beings. Let us reinforce our rank and file in the fight for freedom, no longer suffering in silence and whining like a helpless dog, but striking back with all the force at our command when we are struck, preferring to suffer the consequences of pressing forward our claim to a legacy of freedom, than to surrender our heritage to despoilers and usurpers. Be of good cheer, my compatriots. The struggle for African freedom may be long and gloomy, but behind the cloud of suffering and disappointment loom the rays of hope and success on the distant horizon. So long as we are undaunted and are determined to be a free people, the fire of freedom shall not be extinguished from our hearths; we shall march forward towards our national emancipation. So long as we refuse to believe that we are doomed to be the serfs and peons of others, our continent shall be redeemed, and we shall have a new life and enjoy it abundantly.”
Largely on account of the heavy fog, we were compelled to abandon our plans to return to London by car. Our host chose to be wicked and deployed various instruments to torment us. Most of all he plied us with the bad news from our beloved country: (i) Oando Plc, one of Nigeria’s indigenous oil companies, recorded a minimum of 131 percent increase in loss, some N183.9 billion in the 2014 fiscal year; (ii) MTN fined; (iii) Nigeria is broke.
J.K Randle
