Real reason Trump sacked Nigeria’s Ogunlesi as adviser

Nigerian born international CEO, Adebayo Ogunlesi, has now
ceased to be an adviser to embattled United States President Donald Trump.
Trump sacked him today along with other distinguished CEOs counselling him via
two councils on how to “Make America Great Again”.

Trump sacked Ogunlesi on Twitter, when he announced the
dissolution of two business advisory councils, in one fell swoop.

Ogunlesi was a member of the Strategic and Policy Forum, one
of the two disbanded by the unpredictable president. The other group was the
Manufacturing Jobs Initiative Council.

Ogunlesi heads Global Infrastructure Partners, a private
equity firm and one of Fortune 500 companies. He was the only African on the
panel.

The New York Times reported before Trump’s tweeted
dissolution, that members of Ogunlesi’s panel were debating dissolving the body
entirely as Trump wallowed deeper into bigotry quagmire. But Trump pre-empted
their move.

“Corporate leaders had hoped that President Trump would help
businesses by slashing taxes and gutting regulations. It is not clear how much
he will deliver on that score. On top of that, he is putting many chief
executives in the position of answering for a president with an unparalleled
track record of outraging people, most recently at a contentious press conference
on Tuesday when he drew a false equivalence between the white supremacists who
protested in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend and counter-protesters.,” NYT
reported.

Trump had earned rebuke and isolation from business leaders
for supporting racial bigotry,  White
Supremacists and the KKK, following his remarks that failed to blame the tragic
violence in Charlottesville, Virginia on the groups. Instead, he blamed all the
sides and the group that challenged the racists.

The leaders of three companies: Kenneth Frazier of Merck,
Kevin Plank of Under Armour and Brian Krzanich of Intel; were the first to
resign from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative Council.

They resigned on Monday because Mr. Trump was slow to
condemn the white supremacists during the weekend and blamed “many sides” for
the violence.

When Trump moderated his tone on Monday by saying “racism is
evil” and also condemned neo-Nazis, he did not assuage some of the CEOs working
with him.

Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American
Manufacturing, an organization backed by the steel industry and the United
Steelworkers resigned. He was followed on Tuesday by Richard Trumka and Thea
Lee, the president and deputy chief of staff for the union group A.F.L.-C.I.O.
The latter’s resignation followed Trump’s reversed position at a press
conference at Trump Tower in New York, 
in which he said that “not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe
me,” referring to the white nationalists who were chanting “Jews will not
replace us” as they marched with tiki-torches.

Ogunlesi’s Strategic 
Forum,  composed some of America’s
most highly respected and successful business leaders.

Members of the  body
were expected  to meet with Trump
frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president
implemented his plan to bring back jobs and “Make America Great Again. ”

The other members of the forum were:

• Stephen Schwarzman (forum chairman), chairman, CEO, and
cofounder of Blackstone

• Paul Atkins, CEO of Patomak Global Partners, former
commissioner of the Securities and Exchange          Commission

• Mary Barra, chairwoman and CEO, General Motors

• Toby Cosgrove, CEO, Cleveland Clinic

• Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

• Larry Fink, chairman and CEO, BlackRock

• Bob Iger, chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company

• Rich Lesser, president and CEO, Boston Consulting Group

• Doug McMillon, president and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

• Jim McNerney, former chairman, president, and CEO of
Boeings

• Ginni Rometty, chairwoman, president, and CEO of IBM

• Kevin Warsh, Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow
in economics at the Hoover Institute,   former
member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

• Mark Weinberger, global chairman and CEO, EY

• Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO, General Electric

• Daniel Yergin, Pulitzer Prize winner, vice chairman of IHS
Markit

Apart from being managing partner of Global Infrastructure
Partners, Ogunlesi also serves on the boards of Callaway Golf Co. and Kosmos
Energy Ltd.

At the same time he is the chairman of Africa Finance Corp.
and serves on the boards of various not-for-profits ranging from New York
Presbyterian Hospital to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.