DAILY TRUST
Hadiza Bala Usman, former Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), has fired back at ex-Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi.
Speaking at the annual lecture organised by The Niche, an online publication, Amaechi accused Bala Usman of documenting false narrative in her book titled: “Stepping on Toes: My Odyssey at the Nigerian Ports Authority.”
In the book, she chronicled her emergence and struggles while she served as managing director of NPA.
Amaechi said he had been refraining from responding to the claims in her book, stating the lies were just too many.
He claimed that as managing Director of NPA with N2.5m approval limit, she approved a contract of N2.4bn.
But in a statement she personally signed on Saturday, Bala Usman asked Amaechi to “please grow up and stop all these lies”.
She said she took time to respond to the allegations levelled against in the book, wondering why Amaechi was after her.
“Recent newspaper reports of false claims attributed to the eternally petty ex-Minister of Transportation, His Excellency Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, about me did not come to me as a surprise.
“In his over two decades in public office, Nigerians must be used to the fluidity with which he tells lies, manipulates facts, and talks out of turn. Here is someone who once brazenly told Nigerians that he doesn’t like money, even when his public conduct contradicts this assertion. That must be the most fantastic lie that any public official, living or dead, has ever told Nigerians and so, nothing he says should astonish us.
“Aside from exaggerations, manipulation of the truth and outright lies which he threw at his audience on Thursday, the former Minister said nothing that I did not already reveal in my memoirs: Stepping on Toes: My Odyssey at the Nigerian Ports Authority.
“The book has been on sale since April 2023, but has he even read it to understand that I didn’t hide anything from Nigerians about the events surrounding my “stepping aside,” and eventual exit as Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority.”
The presidential aide went down memory lane to explain how she addressed the issues he raised one after the other.
Countering Amaechi, Bala Usman said she did not know the grounds over which she was allegedly indicted.
“Mr Amaechi in his rant alleged that I awarded a contract worth N2.8b. This is false. I don’t know where the former Minister got his N2.8b figure from since this accusation was nowhere in the list of infractions conveyed to me in a query arising from the reports of the Administrative Panel of Inquiry he set up.”
“The only issue relating to a contract award in the query was about the emergency purchase of operational vehicles following the vandalisation of the premises of the Marina, Lagos headquarters of the NPA on October 21, 2020.
“This subject was addressed in Query E with the title: “Unilateral and improper use of the emergency procurement mode to procure vehicles”.
“Here, the management of the NPA was accused of making the emergency purchase of operational vehicles “to the tune of One Billion, Two Hundred and Seventy-Seven Million, Six Hundred and Sixty Nine Thousand, One Hundred and Eighty-Three Naira Ninety Five Kobo(N1,277,669,183.95), without approval from the Federal Executive Council.”
