By Goodluck Ikiebe
The Chairman of DAAR Communications Plc, owners of AIT, Raypower and Faaji FM, Raymond Dokpesi (Jnr), has offered explanations on the retirement of 10 Directors, including Dr. Oluwatosin Dokpesi, the wife of his late father, Dr. Raymond Dokpesi, from the company.
Dokpesi offered the explanation in an interview with Daily Sun on Wednesday, days after the sack was confirmed by the firm.
He said: “I think the first thing to recognise is that it is not a personal decision to ask anyone to go.
“If I had it left to me and to myself, I would definitely want to harness the experiences, the relationships and the skills that the existing management has for a little bit longer.
“But the reality of the matter is that we are a publicly listed company.
“We are the only publicly listed media company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and that means we are also bound by the Securities and Exchange Commission rules and the code of corporate governance is mandatory for all publicly listed companies.
“So, that means our responsibilities to our shareholders transcend personal choices or personal opinions.
“We have persons who are leaving the organisation after 27 years; we have people who are leaving after 22 years.
“The vast majority of this time, they have spent in executive management positions and yet, the code of corporate governance and our internal documents state we should only do a maximum of two terms of five years.
“So, their retirement is, in fact, long overdue.
“It was a decision which ought to have been made, even as far back as five, six, seven years ago.
“But as of that time, my dad was still alive, very present and very active and also, we were going through different political turbulence as far as our organisation is concerned.
“Nobody needs to be reminded of the history of the former President Muhammadu Buhari administration with reference to the treatment of AIT and our founder in particular.
“Notwithstanding, whatever you want to say about the incumbent administration, I think, to some large extent, they have shown their capacity for accommodation of all shades of opinions”.
