● Dodging the EFCC: The Billionaire Who Chose to Run
● How a Once-Respected Industrialist Traded Honour for Escape
The name Oba Otudeko once evoked the image of a titan in Nigerian industry, a builder of conglomerates and boardroom Goliath. As you read, he is caught up in the turbulence of steep and unforgiving commerce.
And like a sewer rat fleeing the onslaught of an unrelenting charwoman, he is now running hither and thither in a clear case reminiscent of morbid amnesia. He probably had forgotten that those who summon the storm must never cringe from a storm cloud. But having beckoned the storm, he cringes from its ravage like a spaniel fleeing the gusts of a snowstorm.
Interestingly, like a bedraggled bird sensing the coming storm, Oba Otudeko has taken to his wings, fleeing the land where his empire once stood tall. But this is no graceful ascent—it is a desperate retreat, a vanishing act staged under the shadow of indictment.
In a disgraceful flight from accountability, the former chairman of First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) Holdings has chosen exile over explanation, escape over integrity, leaving in his wake the ruins of whatever reputation he had left. With the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) closing in, filing a 13-count charge of alleged fraud, Otudeko made a calculated decision—to abandon his country rather than face the wheels of justice. His departure was neither grand nor dignified; no farewell address, no defiant last stand. Instead, he slipped away through a land border like a fugitive in the night, dropped off at the Nigeria-Benin border by a family member, his phone lines severed, his voice reduced to whispers of speculation. It is a pitiful fall for a man who once sat atop the commanding heights of Nigerian business. For a man who once commanded boardrooms with the force of a sovereign, this hasty departure marks the final unraveling of his legacy.
Otudeko’s exit raises an urgent question: Is this the legacy he wishes to leave behind? Is this the epitaph to a five-decade career in enterprise? Once a builder of institutions, his final act is one of flight, an inglorious retreat that stamps his name among those who flee rather than defend their honour. For a man who presided over the financial citadel that is First Bank and held the reins of Honeywell Flour Mills, his name should have been etched in gold, preserved in the annals of Nigeria’s economic architects. Instead, it will be recorded alongside those who chose cowardice over courage.
Perhaps he hoped that, in time, his silence would erase the stain. But history is not so forgiving. The spectre of his alleged crimes—obtaining a N30 billion loan under false pretences, siphoning tranches of credit facilities in sums as staggering as N12.3 billion, N5.2 billion, N6.2 billion, N6.1 billion, and N1.5 billion—will not fade simply because he has fled. The charges, filed at the Federal High Court in Lagos, are not mere whispers of political persecution but formal allegations that demand an answer. Yet, instead of standing before the courts, Otudeko has chosen the ignoble path of the fugitive.
Trust, once lost, is near impossible to regain. In the corporate world, where confidence and credibility are currencies more valuable than gold, Otudeko has rendered himself bankrupt. Investors who once looked to him as an exemplary model of enterprise now see a man unwilling to stand by his own dealings. Shareholders who once believed in his vision must now contend with the knowledge that their former leader has abandoned ship. First Bank, the very institution he once chaired, is now embroiled in the shame of his misconduct, its name dragged through the mud by a leader who left disgrace in his wake.
His claims of innocence, issued through a carefully worded statement, ring hollow. “I will defend my reputation,” he declared, yet his actions contradict his words. What manner of defence is this—where the accused vanishes before the trial even begins? What kind of credibility does a man command when he flees the jurisdiction of the very country whose economy he helped shape? It is the paradox of dishonour: the louder one protests innocence while running from the law, the more guilty one appears.
There is no gainsaying Otudeko is now a man without a country, a fugitive whose name will be whispered in corridors of dishonour; a spent tycoon whose legacy is now irreversibly tied to shame. There is no greater indignity than to be remembered as one who ran when he should have stood his ground.
The corridors of power that once echoed with his name now resound with whispers of shame. The mighty industrialist, once a titan of finance, has chosen the ignoble path of a fugitive, slipping through the nation’s borders like a thief in the night.
Otudeko’s name, once synonymous with power, will now serve as a warning: wealth and influence are no shields against accountability. They are privileges that must be matched with responsibility.
For those who once admired him, his disappearance is a betrayal. For the nation, his flight is an insult. And for the legacy he spent decades building, it is an unceremonious collapse. This is how history will remember him—not as a titan, but as a deserter; not as a builder, but as one who razed his own reputation to the ground.
The truth will prevail, Otudeko once said. Indeed, it has. And it has found him wanting.
