- Hadiza had accused Mr Amaechi of orchestrating her removal because she failed to lavish him with favours
- She accused him of sitting on directives already approved by the president
The former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has spoken for the first time on the allegations that he orchestrated the removal of the former Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Usman, because of personal grudges.
Ms Usman, in her book titled: “Stepping on Toes: My Odyssey at the Nigerian Ports Authority” launched in April, detailed her experiences and challenges as the head of the NPA and the accusations that led to her removal as the head of the government agency.
She accused Mr Amaechi of orchestrating her removal because she failed to lavish him with favours, including birthday gifts. She also accused him of sitting on directives already approved by the president and chiding her for going over him to get it, which she said was to get the work done.
Ms Usman was suspended from office in May 2021, following Mr Amaechi’s request to then President Muhammadu to probe the accounts of the NPA.
Mr Amaechi, then the minister supervising the NPA, had alleged that the NPA failed to remit about N165 billion operating surpluses into the Consolidated Revenue Fund Account of the federation.
He also set up an administrative panel of inquiry to investigate the affairs of the NPA, including awards of contracts from 2016 to May 2021. The panel found no wrongdoing against Ms Usman, yet she was removed from office and replaced with Mohammed Bello-Koko, who served as her executive director, finance and administration.
She would later write in the book that Mr Amaechi simply wanted her out of the NPA at all cost due to personal grudges.
Addressing the allegations in the book for the first time, Mr Amaechi said he had spent the past months contemplating on whether or not he should respond because “the lies were just too many.”
He spoke in Lagos at an annual lecture organised by The Niche on the theme: “Why we stride and slip: Leadership, Nationalism and the Nigerian condition”.
“The lies were too many,” he was quoted as saying by Daily Trust newspaper at the event.
He said he decided to respond even though more than 90 per cent of people told him not to.
Mr Amaechi said Mr Buhari, then the president, endorsed her removal because the panel found her guilty.
“She claimed she was not invited by the panel. I even came with the memo of the president, where the president endorsed her removal,” he said.
He added that her removal was premised on the fact that she approved contracts up to N2.8 billion without appropriation even though her approval limit was N2.5 million.
According to him, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) later found that despite the lack of appropriation, the contract was inflated by N58 million which she was asked to refund.
He said: “Count one is in the question of the fact that the panel says she is guilty; count two is due to the fact that a Managing Director of NPA with N2.5 million approval limit can approve N2.8 billion contract with no appropriation…”
Amaechi also accused her of changing agreements already approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) without consultations.
“The Federal Executive Council, the President and Vice President including the Minister of Transport will approve an agreement for Lekki Deep Sea Port, the MD of NPA will change it and when queried, she will say for national interest, so we are for Biafra interest?” he asked.
He also accused her of granting waivers she has no powers to grant at the NPA.
He said: “She gave waivers to prominent Nigerians, which she has no power to give and these are dollars accruable to Nigeria’s economy but she was bold to write a book or is it a pamphlet and Nigerians are following her, launching the book, so how will Nigeria move forward?
“But let’s wait until they bring the original copy because if I give you the photocopy, you will say it is fake. I will show you the original but I won’t allow you to read it because you would see the names of those prominent Nigerians that were indicted by the panel. I will rather read the areas that concern her and leave those prominent Nigerians, they didn’t look for my trouble.”
Reacting to the claims that he was furious because Ms Usman did not get a birthday gift from him, Mr Amaechi said he had told her to stop getting him birthday gifts when he became a minister.
“She gave me a lot of birthday presents, from the time I met her to when I became a minister. When I became a minister, the last birthday present she gave me was a big returnee bag. So I said no, that I am now a minister. You are now my subordinate, but she lied. Would you believe that somebody who worked under me from 2013 will not give a birthday present,” he said.