By Olusegun Olanrewaju
She wears a warm smile on a pretty face. With her pedigree as the daughter of fire-spitting radical activist, the late Dr Bala Usman, she’s expected to have the heart of a lioness.

However, these are not smiling moments for Hadiza Bala Usman. She would also need more than guts to get out of her ordeal. She’s being dragged in the mud, to explain what she knows about the alleged unremitted N165bn fund of the Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA.

A presidential statement by Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu asked Ms Bala Usman to step aside pending the outcome of investigations into whopping allegations of sleaze in the agency she headed. Going by the modus operandi of the present administration, she is as good as been sacked. Her tenure has run into a cul-de-sac, a coup de grace. An abrupt end.

Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi sealed her fate with a damning memo to President Buhari indicting  Hadiza of not remitting accruals to the Federation Account. That was all the President needed to hear, to send the once-powerful poster girl of the administration into the cold, lonely night where she’s now battling not just for her job, but her integrity.

This indeed is a hard fall for a woman of authority who was once believed to be one of the ‘untouchables’ in the Buhari administration because she hails from the same home state (Katsina) as the president; and also, a close ally of Gov. Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State.

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What went wrong? How did she get into the spider’s web?  There are different tales flying everywhere. The first is that a tweet on her handle expressing angst against the shoddy handling of the insecurity in the country rubbed on the wrong side of the administration; there’s also the Amaechi angle, that she fell out with her supervising minister, who lay in wait for her and struck when she least expected the hammer (her tenure had only recently been renewed for a second term). There are also reports of an alleged deal between an Israeli security outfit for waterways protection which powerful administration hawks are interested in, which she had been frustrating.

ThisNigeria could not immediately confirm the veracity of the weighty accusations against the suspended czar of the NPA before this report. But what is clear is that: She had a frosty relationship with her minister.

Apart from alleged “disobedience to orders, and  ‘arrogance’, Hadiza is also being accused of corruption, abuse of office insubordination and a litany of scandals.

‘Stepping aside’
Her suspension apparently took her unawares.
She was on official duty with aides in Jos, the Plateau State capital, when Garba announced her suspension, and a probe into her entire six years tenure.
Kebbi state-born Mohammed Koko,  erstwhile Executive Director, Finance and Administration at NPA, will act as the MD.

Things fall apart
An online medium has suggested that Ms Bala Usman’s suspension from office  ‘’has everything to do with the supremacy battle and power tussle between her and Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, on one hand, and presidency cabal on the other.

The NPA is signposted as “one of the most lucrative agencies in the federal bureaucracy.  It is, therefore, a hotbed of politicking.”
Quoting sources, the online platform, Pulse.ng claimed that the hitherto robust relationship between the NPA boss and Minister Amaechi had been deteriorating ‘’because she wielded more and more power as NPA MD. Amaechi made repeated attempts to axe Bala Usman,’’

Independent sources also revealed that Usman had also been at loggerheads with some powerful forces over procurement issues in the agency.

Others relate her woes to issues serenading her re-appointment for another five-year term on January 21, 2021.

Amaechi, it was gathered, was the one who facilitated the appointment of Usman as the NPA MD, from her former engagement as an aide to Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai.

But over time, it was alleged that ‘’she became arrogant’’ and would not take orders from her boss. It was a matter of time before the bubble burst.

There are also reports of the controversial revocation of Intels contract, which could also have contributed to Hadiza’s fall.
Intel’s is a ports logistics company with a monopoly over the highly lucrative oil and gas cargoes at the nation’s terminals.

Hadiza was said to have been arguing that Intels had not been remitting revenue to the Federal Government and that the company had also been violating the terms of the agreement it signed decades ago, resulting in revenue loss to Nigeria.

The embattled NPA MD was also alleged to have ‘implemented a presidential directive’ that de-monopolised ports logistics for oil and gas cargoes, allowing other ports and logistics companies to be involved.

Amaechi, it was further gathered, asked the NPA to hands off all matters relating to Intels, including a case in court, a directive that Hadiza’s port management ignored.

Hadiza Bala Usman, MD NPA suspended

SaharaReporters, another online medium, traced Usman’s suspension to a Cargo Tracking Note (CTN) contract allegedly given out to a Lebanese syndicate by top government officials, without apparent transparency.

Citing the issue of insecurity, President Muhammadu Buhari was reported to have on March 21 directed Amaechi to reintroduce the CTN, with reference to the “increase in banditry across the nation and ideas to beef up security in the country.”
The die was cast.

Baits were reportedly laid for Usman until Amaechi eventually made headway in March when he wrote a letter to the president complaining that NPA had not remitted an “operating surplus of N165 billion to the Consolidated Revenue Fund account (CRF) from 2016 till date”.

Amaechi cited information from the Budget Office to that effect.

The minister asked the president to approve an audit of the “account and remittance” of NPA for the period, it was learnt.

The request, dated March 4, was approved by President Muhammadu Buhari on March 17.

“Buhari has particularly peeved anytime an issue of non-remittance is raised with him, and Amaechi understood the game very well,” a presidency insider told TheCable, an online media.

“It was also the same issue of non-remittance of proceeds of assets sold by the EFCC that led to the removal of Ibrahim Magu. The fastest way to get anyone sacked by Buhari is to build an argument around non-remittance or corruption.”

‘’Armed with presidential approval, the ministry of transportation, in a letter by Magdalene Ajani, the permanent secretary, asked the auditor-general of the federation, to appoint “reputable auditors” for the purpose.

‘’The letter, dated April 6, 2021, shortlisted five audit companies. A response dated April 16, 2001, showed that Adolphus Aghughu, the auditor-general of the federation, said the NPA accounts had already been audited by external auditors up to 2019 — which was declared up to date in the cycle.

Aghughu also said his office conducted periodic checks for the years 2016-2018 and issued “periodic checks reports” along with comments on their annual accounts and auditor’s reports.

He said with “reputable” professional audit firms already being engaged by the NPA board in line with the enabling law, there is “no justification for the Ministry to advertise and select qualified Audit firms to conduct the exercise”.

Corruption?

But Hadiza was once accused of alleged corruption and abuse of office.

Her spending character was questioned as they claimed expenditure under her kept rising ‘’even as the NPA disregarded its audit.’’

The ‘fraud,’ which ran into billions of naira, was allegedly uncovered by an ‘audit query’ of activities of the NPA between 2016 and 2018,

It was alleged that the Auditor-General’s Office concluded, however, that the NPA’s financial records were riddled with so many bookkeeping deficiencies, irregularities and errors ‘’that a reliable audit was simply impossible’’.

The office of the Auditor General of the Federation also reportedly berated the NPA boss for the ‘’gross betrayal of public trust as demonstrated by her flagrant abuse for due process in the way and manner she runs the agency.’’

The office of the Auditor-General of the Federation was said to have castigated her refusal to remit VAT deductions running into billions of naira and in foreign currency denomination to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

The query reportedly highlighted unremitted deduction to FIRS to include N3,667,750,470. $148,845,745.04, Euro 4,891,449.50 and £252,682.14.

The NPA under Hadiza Bala Usman was also accused of excessive increase in administrative operational expenses extra-budgetary expenditures on hotel accommodation and under-disclosure of expenditures on hotel expenses, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects, diversion of funds through an in-house magazine (Nigerian Port Today), and sponsorship of National Assembly programmes, amongst others.

The queries which covered over 100 issues, also asked Hadiza Bala Usman to make various refunds to the government, especially in instances where such expenditures could not be justified.

It was also reported that the audit team which reviewed NPA’s policy on CSR Projects/ Programmes ‘’discovered that records relating to CSR fell short of the level of compliance with the Public Procurement Act 2007.

In 2016, the NPA was reported to have spent N286,412,628.00 on CSR while in 2017, the figure rose to N2,496,248,775.00 and N5billion in 2018.

‘’The Audit team found out that beneficiary needs were not properly assessed or identified before the implementation of CSR projects/ programmes.

The Audit team also allegedly observed that there was no evidence of compliance with the Public Procurement Act and that most of the CSR projects/ programmes were inflated.

The auditors, reports say, ordered that the “sum of N5.18 billion should be recovered from the Managing Director of NPA, being the value of inflated amount under her watch.’’

The NPA boss and accountants were said to have been perpetrating a ‘gigantic, unconstitutional accounting fraud’ and deliberately cooking the books to mislead the government and drive the NPA’s budgets ever higher, regardless of port necessity.

‘’The NPA has literally been making up numbers in its annual financial reports to the National Assembly —representing billions of dollars worth of seemingly non-existent transactions —knowing that the National Assembly would rely on those misleading reports when deciding how much money to give the Authority.

Hadiza Bala Usman, it was said, was asked to refund the N20 billion into the government treasury.
The woman at the heart of the controversy has consistently denied charges of alleged corrupt dealings.

The flip side
But while some believe that the suspension was in order, others, especially in the maritime industry, are of the opinion that due process was not followed before she was told to ‘step aside’ for probe.

Those in support of the suspended NPA boss picked holes in the modalities for the ‘punishment’.

They argued that the former ports authority boss was not queried, ‘’nor made aware of the allegations against her management prior to her suspension by President Muhammadu Buhari,’’

Usman herself told an online platform that she neither received a query nor a suspension letter before the suspension.
Her suspension is, therefore, interpreted in some circles to be a clear breach of laid down processes for disciplining heads of government agencies.

Capt. Tony Onoharigho, President of the Nigerian Shippers Council, stated, ‘’Unfortunately for now, nobody knows what Bala Usman has done.

’’If what she has done requires a suspension, so be it.

‘’The Federal Government appointed her managing director of NPA and if they feel she is not doing the job well again, then she has to go.’’

Mr Remi Ogungbemi, the chairman of the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) said he believed that the suspension was ‘’purely an administrative issue within the management of the authority’’.

‘’But I will state that anyone that has the power to hire also has the power to fire in any establishment.’’

Issues
Usman’s suspension is interpreted in some circles to be a clear breach of laid down processes for disciplining heads of government agencies.
The process, according to the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, requires that, ‘’when there is an issue of impropriety against the head of an agency, the Federal Government requires a minister, through the permanent secretary of the supervising ministry, to refer the matter to the governing board of the affected agency in line with its enabling law and chapters three and 16 of the Public Service Rules on discipline and government parastatals.

‘’The board will then issue the affected official a query and subsequently advise the minister of its findings and recommendations.’’

President Buhari approved the re-appointment of Usman in January, alongside other members representing the geo-political zones.

The other board members whose appointments were ratified by the president are Emmanuel Adesoye (chairman, South-West), Ekenyem Nwafor-Orizu (for South-East), Akinwunmi Ricketts (South-South), Ghazali Mijinyawa (North-East), Mustapha Dutse (North-West) and Abdulwahab Adesina (North-Central).

Hadiza hits back at Amaechi
Meanwhile, Hadiza Bala-Usman has denied allegations of misappropriation of funds levelled against her by Rotimi Amaechi.
In a memo to the Chief of Staff to the President, Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari, Hadiza punctured holes in the claims of the minister and the Budget Office of the Federation that she played games with corporate funds, especially on the alleged missing N165 billion fund.

She said wrong assumptions were made in arriving at the allegation of an N165 billion shortfall in the remittances from the NPA since 2016 when she was appointed as MD.

In her defence, she said the alleged shortfall was derived from budgetary assumptions ‘’and not actual amounts’’, adding that her point could be cross-checked with the office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

According to her, the actual operating surpluses between 2017 and 2018 were N76.782 billion and N71.480 billion respectively, and not the sums of N133.084 billion and N88.79 billion claimed in the budget submission.

Hadiza added that based on the model provided by the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, the accessible Operating Surplus of the Authority for the period stood at N51.09 billion and N42.51 billion for 2017 and 2018 respectively, against the premise used by Amaechi in raising his query.

“Accordingly, the authority consequently made a remittance of N42.415 billion and N33.969 billion for the years 2017 and 2018 respectively for the full amount required as remittance for the period (attached herewith are the treasury receipts).

“Based on the above, we wish to clarify the following: (1) The Authority’s computation of its remittances to the CFR are concluded arising from numbers from Audited Financial Statements using the template forwarded to the Authority from the Fiscal Responsibility Commission.

“That the Authority has remitted the full amount due it to CFR for the periods  2017 and 2018 arising from the Operating Surplus derived from the Audited Financial Statement for the period totalling N 76.384 billion as evidenced in attached treasury receipts’’ Hadiza stated.

She added: “That the Authority has remitted a total of N 82.687 billion for the period  2019 and 2020 pending the audit of the financial statement at which point the amount so computed arising from the value of the Operating Surplus in  the audited financial statement will be remitted to the CFR.”

As the ding-dong over the affair continues, one thing is certain: the drama has only just started!