The Board of Directors of the African Petroleum has sacked the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the company, Mr. Zera Maigida. The decision to sack the managing director was arrived at a meeting held in Abuja on Wednesday.

The sack of Maigida marks the effective takeover of the company by the Chairman of Zenon Oil Plc, Mr. Femi Otedola, who is also the chairman of AP. The Zenon Oil chief immediately assumed the position of chairman/managing director pending the appointment of a new managing director, which is expected to be named within two weeks. A member of the board, Rev. Layi Bolodeoku, told journalists at the end of the meeting that the sack of Maigida was the “ultimate consummation of the takeover of the company by Otedola”.

"The Managing Director has been relieved of his job by the reason of this change with effect from today,” he said. According to him, apart from the Zenon shares in AP Plc, which had been controversial, Otedola has a strategic alliance with Afribank of Nigeria Plc. Afribank has 21 per cent stake in the oil marketing company. He also announced the reconstitution of the board. Members of the new board include Mr. Osa Osunde, representing Afribank, who was named as the Vice-Chairman; Mr. Segun Sebanjo (Managing Director, Seymour Energy Trading Limited) and Mrs. Grace Ekpeyong. Others are Josiah Wukari-Wasa (General Manager, Seaforce Shipping), Mr. Stanley Lawson (Group Executive Director, NNPC) and Mrs. Elizabeth Idigbe (Company Secretary).

Bolodeoku said that with financial muscle of Afribank and the experience of Zenon in oil marketing, AP was in a position to take the lead in the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry. The director said the development would not stop the plan of the company to shop for more funds from the capital market.
AP had, prior to this development, planned to access the capital market to raise between N30bn and N35bn as part of its strategic objective of becoming a prime player in the downstream sector of the Nigerian petroleum industry.

Otedola, who had been acting as the chairman of the company, was confirmed a director at the Annual General Meeting in Abuja in August. The confirmation of Otedola was not without opposition from some shareholders, who contended that the acquisition of 28 per cent shares of AP Plc formerly owed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had been a subject of litigation. However, the AGM ruled that even if the Zenon shares were in contention, Otedola as an individual had acquired substantial shares of the oil marketing company. His personal stake in the company now stands at 12.5 per cent.

A judgment certificate delivered by a Kaduna High Court, which was made available to our correspondent in Abuja on Wednesday, showed that the court had vacated an interim injunction granted to four complainants restraining Zenon from parading itself as a shareholder of AP Plc.