At a time when shocking news has become a daily occurrence, Nigerians got an extra dose on Thursday evening when President Muhammadu Buhari asked Hadiza Bala Usman to “step aside” as the managing director of Nigerian Parts Authority (NPA).
Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, said this was to allow for an administrative panel of inquiry to investigate the “management”.
All members of the panel were appointed by Rotimi Amaechi, the minister of transportation who supervises NPA.
Curiously, only Bala Usman, who had been having a cold battle with Amaechi, was asked to step aside, effectively suggesting that she, and not the management, is the target of the investigation.
To act as MD is Mohammed Koko, who was the Zenith Bank accounts officer to Rivers state government when Amaechi was governor.
Koko was appointed executive director of NPA in 2016 when Amaechi became minister. He is in charge of finance and admin, a logical target for the probe, given that the allegations to be investigated fall directly under his department.
Two members on the administrative panel named so far are from the ministry.
Incidentally, the chairman of the panel, who is the director of marine services, is on the NPA board.
This has raised several questions about the ultimate game plan.
WHAT WENT WRONG?
Bala Usman was nominated as NPA MD in 2016 by Amaechi, with whom she had worked at the secretariat of the APC presidential campaign the previous year when Buhari won his first term in office.
She was serving as the chief of staff to the Kaduna state governor, Nasir el-Rufai, when she got the appointment.
However, over the years, the relationship between the two became tetchy, with the now-suspended NPA MD said to be pursuing an independent path on many controversial issues.
Perhaps the most controversial issues revolve around Intels, the ports logistics company with a monopoly over the highly lucrative oil and gas cargoes.
The NPA, under Bala Usman, has been arguing that Intels was not remitting revenue to the federal government and that it has also been violating the terms of the agreement it signed decades ago, resulting in revenue loss to Nigeria.
She also implemented a presidential directive that de-monopolised ports logistics for oil and gas cargoes, allowing other ports and logistics companies to be involved.
Recently, Amaechi asked NPA that all matters relating to Intels be dropped, including a case in court, a directive that is yet to be implemented.
“The honorable minister has been complaining that Hadiza is arrogant and he would cut her wings one of these days. He said she takes her memos directly to the president because she has access, and this is undermining him,” an insider in the ministry of transportation told TheCable.
“The honorable minister had told us that Hadiza would not get a second term, but we were all surprised when President Buhari announced her re-appointment as far back as January — six clear months to the expiration of her tenure. The minister felt humiliated because he was the one that was supposed to make the recommendation based on the law.”
Read the full story in The Cable
