There are strong indications that this season may not be the best for leading Korean digital device manufacturing giant, Samsung Corporation in Nigeria.
This is based on two factors.
First; in the last few years, new entrant to Nigeria’s smart device market, Tecno Mobile seems to have overshadowed the company in terms of saturating the market with ranges of mobile phones including feature and smartphones.
Otherwise, visibility of new Samsung products may have dropped to some extent in several Nigerian phone markets due to what industry analysts described as high prices of products.
On the other hurdle which is more of a diplomatic breach, the Nigerian Senate last week, declared Samsung Managing Director, Young Ho Jo, an illegal immigrant and ordered the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) to deport him alongside others without genuine documents.
The Senate order stemmed from the ongoing probe by the upper legislative chamber’s ad-hoc committee over the $16.35 billion Egina Oil Field project chaired by Senator Solomon Adeola, representing Lagos West Senatorial District.
Business Hilights recalls that Senator Adeola had revealed that the resolution for the deportation of the Samsung managing director was adopted by the Senate last week Thursday in line with the recommendation of the ad-hoc committee in its interim report.
Explaining more, the lawmaker argued that the illegality of the South Korean residency was uncovered on the scrutiny of his papers with other operators of the Egina Oil Field project.
According to him, “Mr. Young Ho Jo, who has been working for the past two months in Nigeria as the managing director of Samsung without fulfilling legal requirements for such told us that he could not complete his documentation as a result of alleged break down of machines of the Nigeria Content Development Monitoring Board (NCMDB).
“But the NCMBD wrote to us that their machines had never broken down in the period claimed, showing that the man has contravened the Local Content law
“Going by recommendations made by this committee to the Senate and resolution adopted, Samsung boss is no longer recognised on account of improper documentation as shown by papers he presented.
“To the Senate and this committee, SAMSUNG MD is an illegal immigrant who must be deported by the Nigerian Immigration Service, to which a letter to that effect has been forwarded to the Ministry of Interior.
“He can, however, come back to the country through proper documentation thereafter,” he said.
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However, it was also found out that Young Ho Jo while in Nigeria violated the Local Content Act by spending $1.6 billion out of the $3.5 billion contract Samsung got from the $16.35 billion Egina Oil Field Project in Goje, South Korea.
It would be recalled that Total Nigeria bank-rolled the Egina-FPSO as part of its exploration capacity expansion in the deep-sea production.
