Posted by By Barry Meier on
For years, Andrew Young, the American civil rights leader, has been deeply involved in this country through the lobbying and consulting firm he heads, GoodWorks International. Its motto is: "We do well by doing good."
LAGOS: For years, Andrew Young, the American civil rights leader, has been deeply involved in this country through the lobbying and consulting firm he heads, GoodWorks International. Its motto is: "We do well by doing good."
But the question of what exactly GoodWorks is or is not doing here has turned Young and his firm into something of a lightning rod, as Nigerians prepare to elect Saturday a successor to this country's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, whom Young has known for 30 years.
"We believe that the relationship between GoodWorks International and Nigeria is foisted on juicy financial benefits to the former," said an editorial earlier this year in a newspaper here, This Day.
For his part, Young, a former congressman, UN ambassador and mayor of Atlanta, dismissed such comments as sniping by opponents of Obasanjo's party, which is expected to win the election.
But there is also little question that Nigeria has been very good for GoodWorks; thanks to Young's long ties to Obasanjo, his Atlanta-based firm has earned millions of dollars here over the years, through a network of business dealings that extend far beyond lobbying.
As business has gone increasingly global, many consulting firms based in the United States like GoodWorks have increased their operations abroad, taking on assignments in developing nations like Nigeria, where power and wealth is frequently concentrated in a few hands. And consulting experts say it is common for U.S. firms that lobby for foreign governments in Washington to also have business interests in those countries.
A look at the activities of GoodWorks in Nigeria, based on interviews and documents, provides a window into how embedded such lobbyists can become in developing economies.
Along with lobbying for Nigeria, for example, GoodWorks is paid to represent dozens of major companies like Chevron, General Electric and Motorola that seek big contracts from the Nigerian government.
In addition, executives of GoodWorks have stakes in Nigerian oil industry, the country's main source of wealth. And several years ago, the firm's chief executive, Carlton Masters, started an American company with close relatives of Obasanjo that bought an expensive Miami property with money invested by Masters, Florida records show.
It is not illegal for American lobbyists to simultaneously represent foreign countries and companies seeking business from them. And they are not barred from having business interests in countries they represent in Washington.
Young and Masters also said in recent interviews that they were scrupulous in avoiding conflicts between their governmental and corporate clients. They added that their clients that have won contracts in Nigeria have done so fairly, by outbidding competitors.
"We don't pay anyone under the table and we don't accept any kind of questionable payments or relationships," Young said. "We don't work with people where there are questions of integrity involved."
For Young, the involvement of GoodWorks in Nigeria is also one of the lesser-known chapters in a long, celebrated and at times controversial career.
Last year, for example, Young, who first became well known as a top aide to the Martin Luther King Jr., resigned as a consultant to Wal-Mart after he said that Jewish, Arab and Korean store owners had "ripped off" black communities by "selling us stale bread and bad meat." He subsequently apologized for the remarks.
GoodWorks has also generated controversy here. Two years ago, for instance, one local activist filed a complaint that, among other things, criticized Masters for his role in fund-raising for a $50 million, American-style presidential library named after Obasanjo that is being built in his hometown north of this chaotic and desperately poor city.
Also in 2005, the Nigerian leader was the host for Masters's wedding at the official presidential banquet hall, an event that drew outcries from Obasanjo's critics.
Several activists in Nigeria said in recent interviews that they believed that Young had decided simply to profit here from his legacy rather than use it to help a country that remains beset by problems that include political corruption, crumbling infrastructure and failed school systems.
"Andrew Young has never been interested in these issues," said Femi Falana, a human rights lawyer who is also president of the West African Bar Association. "He is just here making money."
GoodWorks's dealings in Nigeria reflect Young's relationship over three decades with Obasanjo. And like much else in Young's life, it is a relationship filled with a mix of drama, ideals and opportunism.
The two men met in the late 1970s, when Obasanjo, then a general, first served as this country's president as one in a long line of military figures who ruled Nigeria.
"Obasanjo and I kind of hit it off immediately," said Young, who was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at the time. "We were mainly concerned with democracy."
Two decades later, the names of Young and Obasanjo, who was no longer in public office, appeared together in a U.S. Senate report about the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the rogue financial institution.
The report criticized Young for, among other things, trying to obtain a bank loan to help Obasanjo start a farm equipment company for which he would have worked as a consultant.
That deal never went forward. But in the mid-1990s, Young found himself urging General Sani Abacha, then the Nigerian president, to release a number of political opponents he had jailed, including Obasanjo. In 1999, the year after his release, Obasanjo was voted president in democratic elections.
Young said he believed that his old ally had since reshaped the country for the better by eliminating entrenched corruption and raising the quality of life.
"There isn't anything that's happened in Africa worthwhile, almost since 1960, that he hasn't been involved in," Young said.
While Young, who is 75 years old, still serves as the firm's public face, it is Masters, in his late 50s, who spends much of his time traveling through Africa and the Caribbean. Along the way he has made his own connections.
In 2001, for instance, Masters formed a Florida company, Sunscope Investments, with Obasanjo's brother-in-law and his wife that in turn purchased a Miami condominium for about $750,000, Florida public records indicate.
Asked about the issue, Masters said in a written statement that he had put up the money that Sunscope used to buy the property. He added, however, that Obasanjo's relatives had quickly lost interest in the venture and had not profited from it in any way.
Florida records indicate that Obasanjo's sister-in-law, Yamisi Abebe, remained an officer of Sunscope until last year, when the company was dissolved and transferred its interest in the condominium to Masters for a nominal sum.
One lobbying expert, Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan group in Washington that monitors lobbying, said that given the multiple lobbying roles Masters played in Nigeria, his decision to involve Obasanjo's relatives in his business dealings was troubling.
"It looks like hell," Lewis said.
Masters stated that he had done nothing wrong.
This weekend's election will decide whether Umaru Yar'Adua, the candidate of Obasanjo's party, will succeed him. If he does, it is far more likely that GoodWorks will remain Nigeria's lobbyist than if one of the opposing parties is elected.
"We've never gotten involved in politics," Young said earlier this year. "We've tried to stay friendly with everyone."