•For both me, it’s ‘no victor, no vanquished’

Nigeria has joined the race for a non-permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council, THISDAY has learnt. TThe swords have been sheathed in the long-drawn battle between two friends and business giants, Alhaji Aliko Dangote and Mr. Femi Otedola, who had been at each other’s neck for nearly a year.
In a truce brokered by the Editor-in-Chief and Chairman of THISDAY, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena, and other friends of the business moguls last Sunday, the two men decided to bury the hatchet and forge a new bond.
They had been invited separately for breakfast at Roberts Café, Victoria Island, Lagos , completely unaware of what was in the offing until they “bumped” into each other at the café.
Obaigbena had been speaking to the two men individually before their misunderstanding over the purchase of Texaco became a media war, but the mediation had only succeeded in curtailing the public nature of the fight.
At the reconciliation meeting on Sunday, they finally saw eye-to-eye for the first time in months as they spoke to each other at length, shook hands, asked frank questions and gave what were considered to be honest answers as to the source of their differences.
To the delight of their friends, they made a solemn pledge to let “bygone be bygone”.
They vowed to restore their confidence as friends, as Otedola acknowledged Dangote as his “elder brother” and “mentor”, promising to give Dangote his “due respect”.
Dangote, on his part, pledged to look after his “younger brother” and “protégé”.
When Obaigbena asked the two billionaires to apologise to each other, Otedola seized the initiative. He cut in and said that in Yoruba tradition, Dangote was his senior and it was therefore unnecessary for the Kano-born sugar and cement giant to apologise, as only the junior apologises to the senior.
They both agreed to end the long-running media war and withdraw all court cases related to the disagreement.
The meeting ended with the declaration of “no victor, no vanquished” by the two parties.
After the meeting, which was witnessed by Mr. Nduka Irabor, for chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Communications, and Mr. Albert Okumagba, the CEO of BGL Ltd, among others, the two billionaires drove together to Dangote’s house. Otedola also invited Dangote over to his office this Friday.
The origin of the quarrel is traced to the decision of ChevronTexaco to sell off its downstream interest in West Africa, including Nigeria , last year.
Otedola, who is the chairman of African Petroleum Plc and Zenon Oil, had put in a bid but MRS Holdings, owned by Dangote’s cousin, Sayyu Dantata, outbid Otedola to the coveted company.
It is believed that Otedola saw this as a betrayal on the part of Dangote because of an unwritten law that the two men would not encroach into each other’s territory in business. While Otedola was said to have accused Dangote of using his cousin as front for the Texaco transaction, Dangote reportedly said he was not a party to the deal.
MRS paid $1 billion for a 60 per cent stake in Texaco, while Otedola's bid of $200 million was considered insufficient.
Otedola decided to also go into Dangote’s territory, securing licence to bring in bagged cement, which he names “Otedola Portland Cement” and had already advertised it in the newspapers.
The major grouse of Otedola, it was reported, was that he had been confiding in Dangote over the deal all along, and was bitter that MRS, in which Dangote reportedly has 80 per cent stake, went ahead and made a bid.
As the misunderstanding worsened, AP accused Dangote of manipulating its share prices to the extent that they started falling on the floor of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE), losing over 80 per cent value in eight weeks.

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