A former Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Hadiza Bala Usman has alleged that former Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi orchestrated her removal from office.
Hadiza made the allegation in her new book titled “Stepping on Toes: My Odyssey at the Nigerian Ports Authority”.
Ms Bala Usman alleged that Amaechi, who was her former boss, ensured her removal from office over her failure to grant him favours.
She wrote “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.
“I have been abandoned by politicians I campaigned for”, sick APC member cries out
“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!
“I told him I wasn’t going to do either especially now that the probe panel was in place,” the author wrote in the memoir. “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.
“He 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.”
Recall that Ms Bala Usman was removed from office in May 2021 following allegation of the NPA’s’s non-remittance of about N165bn into the Consolidated Revenue Fund Account of the federation.
