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Does the Arunma Oteh Situation Prove Harvard Degrees Are Overrated in Nigeria?

By Niyi Ayiri on May 10, 2012

Arunma Oteh did not need to consult her senior management staff at SEC in order to unilaterally approve a N 500 billion AMCON bond. Is this because she is some sort of Amazon Wonderwoman? No, she has a degree from Harvard!

The House Committee’s investigation unraveled deep insight into the lackluster management style of Ms. Oteh. For instance how she bypassed her senior management team in everything from hiring contract workers to a N 500 billion AMCON Bond Approval.

The pinnacle of business education is seen as the acquisition of a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Across Corporate Nigeria, you will undoubtedly run into Nigerian returnees from the USA who speak with fluent American accents and are armed with professional experience from abroad as well as the golden Harvard MBA.

It has been common practice for senior Nigerian politicians to hire Harvard certificate holders as it is thought that such individuals possess a magic touch. One thing we can all agree on is they know how to make a presentation.

Arunma Oteh, embattled Director Genera of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a product of Harvard. At the ongoing House Committee on the NEar Collapse of the Capital Markets, part of what we learned is that she knows how to make a presentation.

Mrs. Daisy Ekinah, a SEC commissioner with over thirty years working experience revealed that Ms. Oteh, upon her resumption as SEC boss, made a presentation on “Roadmap to a World Class Capital Market” at the Nigerian Economic Summit Group in 2008.
The presentation was fabulous, however that was the last everyone in the SEC management team ever heard of it again.

Harvard MBA’s or maybe it is female Harvard MBA’s working in Nigeria seem to have serious personality crises. Whilst they may be intelligent and book-smart, they lack the inter-personal communication skills required to motivate personnel, clients and other stakeholders. The only inter-personal skills they deem necessary to work on are their business development or marketing skills. These type of skills are vital to bring in money, however once the money comes in, they become even temperamental and distant from their clients.

Ms. Oteh has displayed flashes of arrogance in the past, one would think to describe as flashes of righteous indignation concerning the allegations she levelled against Hon. Herman Hembe. However when one considers the fact that even senior management staff at the SEC are seriously disillusioned with her leadership style, calling it ‘selfish’, ‘dishonest’ and ‘singular’ in not so many words. Then one begins to see a woman who has serious character issues, but hides behind the ‘brilliance of a Harvard MBA’, in hopes the brilliant light will dull everyone else into believing she possesses something special.

Surely, it wasn’t the good professors at Harvard who taught Ms. Oteh that management meetings are best held via email and text messages.

According to Ekineh, ““There is a dysfunction in SEC, because we no longer work together as a team. There is also absence of respect and team spirit. During the time of the last two DGs, we used to hold meetings in their office regularly. This helped a lot, especially in bringing unity and cohesion to our activities, while helping us achieve more.

“Today, we hardly hold meetings and face-to-face interactions; instead, meetings have been replaced with text messages and emails. I am not saying text messages and emails are bad, but it should not make us do away with meetings and face-to-face interactions.”

Ms. Oteh has been working with these people for close to 4 years or more, could she not tell they were dissatisfied or is it an underlying selfish nature that allowed her to harden her heart to the feelings of individuals who have served their country for a much longer period than Ms. Oteh whose Harvard MBA magically lifted her into the position of power?

Whatever the case may be, it is glaring that as a nation we sell our own institutions short. There is good reason for this, as many of our institutions are nothing to write Harvard about. However in the same sentence, some of these Harvard graduates are nothing to write our institutions about.

To think Ms. Oteh with all her Harvard qualifications and such, could mismanage an institution like SEC to the extent that ALL her management staff are disgruntled. Where is the cohesion? How can a regulator whose duty is to build trust and integrity in the markets not have the trust of her board room?

We shoot ourselves in the foot over and over again in Nigeria. We keep putting these foreign talents ahead of our own deep talent pool and the fact is relationship, character and integrity are more important than certificates.
Next time you see Harvard on a CV or presentation, take your time to assess the character and values of such individuals before handing them the keys to the kingdom.

Ayiri, an accountant, wrote in from Lagos

Arunma Oteh

7 Comments

Omoimey

May 10, 2012 at 1:26 pm

Worst piece of journalism i have ever read. How did this pass through to editorial and then published? Filled with sexist generalisations and nonsensical hearsay! Does the writer have something against Ivy League schools? Or, dare i say it; against WOMEN????
Really disappointed in not only the writer but more so in the editor! A slave is only as wise as its master!
Omoimey

May 10, 2012 at 1:26 pm

Worst piece of journalism i have ever read. How did this pass through to editorial and then published? Filled with sexist generalisations and nonsensical hearsay! Does the writer have something against Ivy League schools? Or, dare i say it; against WOMEN????
Really disappointed in not only the writer but more so in the editor! A slave is only as wise as its master!
Dika4000

May 10, 2012 at 1:33 pm

These people that are making noise should have done so much earlier. There’s a board that supervises SEC. If they had any problems with the DG’s leadership style, they should have voiced it long ago. This to me looks like a classic example of the Chelsea Football Club situation where a young bright manager comes in and decides to make wholesome changes by bringing in fresher talents. The old cargoes will of course not like it, thus the gang-up. Let’s see how this pans out…
Gbemigaomadoye

May 10, 2012 at 10:16 pm

@omoimey, I quite agree, but i think u wasted too much grammar on this author…I only have one questions, Where, Mr. Niyi Ayiri, did you obtain your qualification as an accountant from?…..
Evoque

May 11, 2012 at 1:34 pm

see these oteh supporters sha…una do well…where do u get off calling the author a sexist…

oteh is a fraud after the order of Etteh.

she should be probed and summarily discharged…or u are the pai media consultants from access bank we heard aobut….its ok.
Wale

May 29, 2012 at 6:32 pm

Nigerians and their off topic rants and opinions!!! Na wah oh……..
Wale

May 29, 2012 at 6:32 pm

Nigerians and their off topic rants and opinions!!! Na wah oh……..