Hadiza Bala Usman, a former Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, has revealed why she was fired from the NPA.
Bala accused Rotimi Amaechi, the former Minister of Transportation, of orchestrating her removal from office in February 2023.
This claim was made by Bala in her book “Stepping on Toes: My Odyssey at the Nigerian Ports Authority.”
Amaechi, she claimed, orchestrated her removal because she did not lavish him with favours.
Bala was removed from office following allegations that the NPA failed to remit approximately N165 billion in operating surpluses to the federation’s Consolidated Revenue Fund Account.
President Muhammadu Buhari suspended her after Amaechi requested an investigation into the accounts.
Following that, the minister established an administrative panel of inquiry to investigate the NPA’s operations, including contract awards from 2016 to May 2021.
In addition, he requested that the panel “examine and investigate compliance with communication channels obtained in the public service.”
The investigation, which lasted about nine months, found no evidence of non-remittance; however, Bala Usman was removed from office and replaced with Mohammed Bello-Koko, her executive director of finance and administration.
Bala in her memoir stated;
Amaechi held personal grudges against her because she failed to dispense favours, and that some of these inspired his decision to remove her at all costs. She alleged that the former minister said this much to some people who tried to mediate on the matter.
Interest groups and leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) also tried to intervene. I know, for instance, that Governors elected on the platform of the APC, chaired by Governor Atiku Bagudu, deliberated on the issue of my suspension and constituted a committee to intervene.”
The Governors’ team met the Minister to discuss a resolution of the matter. He insisted that my management of the NPA had to be investigated because of the amount unremitted to the CFR (Consolidated Federation Revenue). He even tried to sway the governors’ resolve by suggesting to them that the budget of the NPA was bigger than most of their state budgets, so they shouldn’t bother about me.
When the governors persisted, he told them that the matter was no longer within his purview and that they may need to approach the Head of Service of the Federation.
“He told another person who tried to intervene that I was so so selfish that I did nothing for him from the NPA, and never even gave him a birthday present!”
She further stated that she had a personal reconciliatory meeting with the Amaechi during which the former minister accused her of writing directly to the President without recourse to the minister.
She said the former minister told her that he took the steps against her because he no longer wanted her in the office and asked that she resigned voluntarily or challenge her suspension in court.
The author wrote in the memoir;
I told him I wasn’t going to do either especially now that the probe panel was in place.
The public service does not in fact accept resignations from staff under probe. I was convinced that doing either would make me appear guilty. I told him that I would rather wait for the panel to complete its task and present their findings, as I was sure I had done nothing wrong.
Upon rejecting Amaechi’s advice, Ms Bala Usman claimed that the former minister “then told me that he would ensure that the investigation went on until 2022 when political activities would have started, and the president would not remember that I was still on suspension. He said what mattered to him was that I was no longer the MD of the NPA.”
Besides the above matters, the book indicates that Messrs Amaechi and Bala Usman disagreed over the handling of some of the major operations at the agency.
She wrote that an unnamed stakeholder in the industry had warned her that the minister would want her out of office when two important contracts were due for renewal.
According to the book:
The first of this was the capital dredging contract and the second, the service boat management contract. While the minister demanded an extension of tenure of the companies providing capital dredging services without due process, he got approval for the restoration of an expired service boat contract. He got this even though the company was owing the federal government, had violated the Treasury Single Account policy, and above all longer had any contract with the NPA.
The spokesperson for ex-Minister, David Iyofor speaking on the allegation in a chat with Premium Times said his team would issue a comprehensive response to the memoir after reading it.
Iyofor said, “As of now, we are still looking for the book.”