For Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi And Hadiza Bala-Usman, It’s Personal

The suspension of Ms Hadiza Bala-Usman as the Managing Director
of the Nigerian Ports Authority last Thursday by the Minister of
Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, against civil service rules for
the removal of heads of MDAs, was the culmination of the personal
desire of the minister to remove Hadiza and truncate her second
term as Managing Director of agency.

Hadiza was not told what her offences were or formally
communicated, before her suspension was announced by the
presidency.

Not querying her or making her aware of her offence(s) before
suspending her is a clear breach of the processes stipulated in the
government’s own regulation for disciplining heads of government
agencies. A government circular dated May 19, 2020, and endorsed by
the Secretary to Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha,
stipulated 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 in government parastatals.

The board will then issue the affected official a query and
subsequently advise the minister of its findings and
recommendations. But if the board itself is the source of the
allegation of misconduct against the chief executive or the chief
executive is the chairman of the board, the minister, on the advice
of the permanent secretary, still has to ensure a query is issued,
requesting an explanation from the accused official.
In this case, neither the governing board nor the SGF was carried
along before action was taking against Hadiza.

In the beginning, it was all well between Amaechi and Hadiza,
who closely worked together when the minister was DG of the Buhari
campaign and Hadiza was a close confidant of candidate Buhari,
resulting in Amaechi recommending her as MD of NPA. When Amaechi
became transport minister, things began to degenerate when he found
Hadiza too independent to rein her in or control and the suspended
MD would not serve in his court full of political courtiers.

Things came to a head when Amaechi wanted to renew all dredging
contractors of NPA. Many of the contractors had served for decades
and Amaechi got Hadiza to cancel her public advertisement for bid
but was later overruled by the BPE, acting on the orders of the
president that a public bid be held.

The crisis deepened from one contract to the other as Hadiza
insisted on due process and more often had presidential backing to
the anger of Amaechi, who then promised that Hadiza would be a one
term MD. To the minister’s shock and consternation, Hadiza got a
second term without his input and since then vowed to oust her.

The first attempt was when Amaechi accused Hadiza and the NPA of
not auditing their books and recommended KPMG Nigeria; Deloitte
Nigeria; Price Water House Coopers, Ernst and Young and Mckinsey
and Company Nigeria. The Auditor-General of the Federation informed
Amaechi that the NPA had engaged Messrs Muhtari Dangana and Co
(Chartered Accountants) and SIAO Chartered Accountants in that
respect.
The Auditor General of the Federation also told the minister that
the NPA was in compliance with yearly audit unlike other government
agencies.

From that, the crisis culminated into the issue over remittance
of operations’ surplus to the Consolidated Revenue Funds between
2016 and 2020 to Consolidated Revenue Funds (CRF) and the CBN.
Before Hadiza could respond to the query to show that NPA had
indeed been remitting to the CRF and the CBN, Amaechi got the
President to approve her ouster without due process on the pretext
that a panel had been set up to probe her management of then
agency. Ironically, the person to act for her while on suspension
is the Executive Director, Finance of NPA, Mohammed Koko, who was
not suspended, despite the planned probe of NPA’s finances.

The Minister alleged that the NPA under Hadiza could not account
for N165.320 billion between 2018 and 2020 in the record of its
remittance of operations surplus to the Consolidated Revenue Funds.
Amaechi in a letter addressed to the office of the President on
March this year, alleged that NPA’s yearly remittance of operating
surpluses from year 2016-2020 fell short of the actual amount due
for actual remittance.

Amaechi wrote: “In view of the above, I wish to suggest that the
financial account of the activities of Nigerian Ports Authority be
investigated for the period 2016-2020 to ascertain the true
financial position and the outstanding unremitted balance of One
hundred and sixty-five billion, three hundred and twenty million,
nine hundred and sixty-two thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven
naira only (N165,320,962,697).”
The minister therefore sought that “the account and remittance of
NPA in the period of 2018-2020 be audited to account for the gross
shortfall of remitted public funds.”

The Presidency, in a letter dated March 30, and which was signed
by the Chief of Staff to the President granted the prayers of the
Transport Minister on the need to audit the books of NPA
However, there was a drama as the office of the Auditor General of
the Federation clarified that the NPA Act did not give anyone the
responsibility of authorising the Auditor General of the Federation
to audit its accounts. It however explained that it is within the
purview of the office of the Auditor General of the Federation to
provide NPA with a list of auditors qualified to be appointed by
them as external auditors, among others.

In the memo signed by the Auditor-General of the Federation, the
Transport Minister was informed that the NPA had engaged Messrs
Muhtari Dangana and Co (Chartered Accountants) and SIAO Chartered
Accountants in that respect.
The memo also said that both firms had audited and published the
audited accounts of NPA as approved by the board for 2016, 2017 and
2018, adding that the audit of 2019 was ongoing, awaiting NPA’s
approval to be published.

Apparently not satisfied with the position of the AGF, Amaechi,
through a memo issued by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of
Transportation, Dr. Magdalene Ajani and addressed to the
Auditor-General of the Federation, called for a holistic audit of
all financial activities of the NPA and went further to list some
selected audit firms for the job.

Those familiar with the crisis said it has been a cat and mouse
relationship between the Minister and the embattled chief executive
of NPA, for over five years climaxing in the rejection of the
record of NPA’s remittance of operations’ surplus to the CRF.
The cat and mouse relationship between Amaechi and Hadiza was also
fuelled by the suspicion that the executive director was too close
to the supervising minister, a development that was said to have
raised the fear that the director had been leaking some sensitive
information especially of the finances of NPA to the Minister.

Koko is known to be close to Amaechi in his days as governor of
Rivers State. Koko was then a staff of Zenith Bank in Port
Harcourt.
There was also the battle over the sack of Intels, a major
contractor of NPA by Bala-Usman. The firm was a major sponsor of
APC in the 2015 election and the transport minister was looking
towards the firm for support in 2023. Amaechi wanted Intels badly
but Hadiza denied him.

Political Tweets

Bala-Usman finally played into the hands of those plotting her
ouster with her recent political tweet on the state of the
nation.
Reacting to the rising insecurity in the country, Hadiza on
February 27, tweeted, “The state of insecurity in the country that
has led to the kidnap of Kagara boys and Zamfara girls need to be
addressed urgently…We can’t go on like this! Rescue our children
and secure our country that’s all we ask…#SecureNorth
#SecureNigeria.”

The tweets caught the attention of her opponents who intensified
moves to remove her for daring to take on a government which she
served.
President Buhari and her other sympathisers in the Presidency could
no longer help her case when attention were called to the tweet
which presented her as a sharp critic of the administration, who
could no longer be trusted because of the suspicion that she might
be working for the opposition.

Bala-Usman’s last-Minute Efforts

However, Bala-Usman, who got wind of the plot against her, had
on Wednesday fired a memo addressed to the Chief of Staff to the
President, stating her position and calling for involvement of the
office of the Accountant General of the Federation to establish the
true position of the authorities’ remittances.

In the memo she personally signed, Bala-Usman explained that the
Authority’s computation of its remittances to the CFR are concluded
arising from numbers from the audited financial statements using
the template forwarded to the authority from the Fiscal
Responsibility Commission and not budgetary provision.

She insisted that the NPA 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 N76.384 billion as evidenced in treasury receipts.

According to her, NPA had remitted a total of N82.687billion for
the period 2019 and 2020 pending the audit of the financial
statement at which point the amount so much computed arising from
the value of the operating surplus to the audited financial
statement will be remitted to the CFR.

“We wish to request that the Chief of Staff requests the Office
of the Accountant-General of the Federation who are the statutorily
custodian of status of payment to the CRF to provide clartrue
position of the Authorities remittances to the CFR,” she
submitted.

“At the end of the day, pundits are wondering if President
Buhari will discard his adopted daughter for an unreliable former
governor of Rivers State who ditched his predecessor Peter Odili
and not on speaking terms with his successor, Nyesom
Wike.”

The suspension of Ms Hadiza Bala-Usman as the Managing Director
of the Nigerian Ports Authority last Thursday by the Minister of
Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, against civil service rules for
the removal of heads of MDAs, was the culmination of the personal
desire of the minister to remove Hadiza and truncate her second
term as Managing Director of agency.

Hadiza was not told what her offences were or formally
communicated, before her suspension was announced by the
presidency.

Not querying her or making her aware of her offence(s) before
suspending her is a clear breach of the processes stipulated in the
government’s own regulation for disciplining heads of government
agencies. A government circular dated May 19, 2020, and endorsed by
the Secretary to Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha,
stipulated 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 in government parastatals.

The board will then issue the affected official a query and
subsequently advise the minister of its findings and
recommendations. But if the board itself is the source of the
allegation of misconduct against the chief executive or the chief
executive is the chairman of the board, the minister, on the advice
of the permanent secretary, still has to ensure a query is issued,
requesting an explanation from the accused official.
In this case, neither the governing board nor the SGF was carried
along before action was taking against Hadiza.

In the beginning, it was all well between Amaechi and Hadiza,
who closely worked together when the minister was DG of the Buhari
campaign and Hadiza was a close confidant of candidate Buhari,
resulting in Amaechi recommending her as MD of NPA. When Amaechi
became transport minister, things began to degenerate when he found
Hadiza too independent to rein her in or control and the suspended
MD would not serve in his court full of political courtiers.

Things came to a head when Amaechi wanted to renew all dredging
contractors of NPA. Many of the contractors had served for decades
and Amaechi got Hadiza to cancel her public advertisement for bid
but was later overruled by the BPE, acting on the orders of the
president that a public bid be held.

The crisis deepened from one contract to the other as Hadiza
insisted on due process and more often had presidential backing to
the anger of Amaechi, who then promised that Hadiza would be a one
term MD. To the minister’s shock and consternation, Hadiza got a
second term without his input and since then vowed to oust her.

The first attempt was when Amaechi accused Hadiza and the NPA of
not auditing their books and recommended KPMG Nigeria; Deloitte
Nigeria; Price Water House Coopers, Ernst and Young and Mckinsey
and Company Nigeria. The Auditor-General of the Federation informed
Amaechi that the NPA had engaged Messrs Muhtari Dangana and Co
(Chartered Accountants) and SIAO Chartered Accountants in that
respect.
The Auditor General of the Federation also told the minister that
the NPA was in compliance with yearly audit unlike other government
agencies.

From that, the crisis culminated into the issue over remittance
of operations’ surplus to the Consolidated Revenue Funds between
2016 and 2020 to Consolidated Revenue Funds (CRF) and the CBN.
Before Hadiza could respond to the query to show that NPA had
indeed been remitting to the CRF and the CBN, Amaechi got the
President to approve her ouster without due process on the pretext
that a panel had been set up to probe her management of then
agency. Ironically, the person to act for her while on suspension
is the Executive Director, Finance of NPA, Mohammed Koko, who was
not suspended, despite the planned probe of NPA’s finances.

The Minister alleged that the NPA under Hadiza could not account
for N165.320 billion between 2018 and 2020 in the record of its
remittance of operations surplus to the Consolidated Revenue Funds.
Amaechi in a letter addressed to the office of the President on
March this year, alleged that NPA’s yearly remittance of operating
surpluses from year 2016-2020 fell short of the actual amount due
for actual remittance.

Amaechi wrote: “In view of the above, I wish to suggest that the
financial account of the activities of Nigerian Ports Authority be
investigated for the period 2016-2020 to ascertain the true
financial position and the outstanding unremitted balance of One
hundred and sixty-five billion, three hundred and twenty million,
nine hundred and sixty-two thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven
naira only (N165,320,962,697).”
The minister therefore sought that “the account and remittance of
NPA in the period of 2018-2020 be audited to account for the gross
shortfall of remitted public funds.”

The Presidency, in a letter dated March 30, and which was signed
by the Chief of Staff to the President granted the prayers of the
Transport Minister on the need to audit the books of NPA
However, there was a drama as the office of the Auditor General of
the Federation clarified that the NPA Act did not give anyone the
responsibility of authorising the Auditor General of the Federation
to audit its accounts. It however explained that it is within the
purview of the office of the Auditor General of the Federation to
provide NPA with a list of auditors qualified to be appointed by
them as external auditors, among others.

In the memo signed by the Auditor-General of the Federation, the
Transport Minister was informed that the NPA had engaged Messrs
Muhtari Dangana and Co (Chartered Accountants) and SIAO Chartered
Accountants in that respect.
The memo also said that both firms had audited and published the
audited accounts of NPA as approved by the board for 2016, 2017 and
2018, adding that the audit of 2019 was ongoing, awaiting NPA’s
approval to be published.

Apparently not satisfied with the position of the AGF, Amaechi,
through a memo issued by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of
Transportation, Dr. Magdalene Ajani and addressed to the
Auditor-General of the Federation, called for a holistic audit of
all financial activities of the NPA and went further to list some
selected audit firms for the job.

Those familiar with the crisis said it has been a cat and mouse
relationship between the Minister and the embattled chief executive
of NPA, for over five years climaxing in the rejection of the
record of NPA’s remittance of operations’ surplus to the CRF.
The cat and mouse relationship between Amaechi and Hadiza was also
fuelled by the suspicion that the executive director was too close
to the supervising minister, a development that was said to have
raised the fear that the director had been leaking some sensitive
information especially of the finances of NPA to the Minister.

Koko is known to be close to Amaechi in his days as governor of
Rivers State. Koko was then a staff of Zenith Bank in Port
Harcourt.
There was also the battle over the sack of Intels, a major
contractor of NPA by Bala-Usman. The firm was a major sponsor of
APC in the 2015 election and the transport minister was looking
towards the firm for support in 2023. Amaechi wanted Intels badly
but Hadiza denied him.

Political Tweets

Bala-Usman finally played into the hands of those plotting her
ouster with her recent political tweet on the state of the
nation.
Reacting to the rising insecurity in the country, Hadiza on
February 27, tweeted, “The state of insecurity in the country that
has led to the kidnap of Kagara boys and Zamfara girls need to be
addressed urgently…We can’t go on like this! Rescue our children
and secure our country that’s all we ask…#SecureNorth
#SecureNigeria.”

The tweets caught the attention of her opponents who intensified
moves to remove her for daring to take on a government which she
served.
President Buhari and her other sympathisers in the Presidency could
no longer help her case when attention were called to the tweet
which presented her as a sharp critic of the administration, who
could no longer be trusted because of the suspicion that she might
be working for the opposition.

Bala-Usman’s last-Minute Efforts

However, Bala-Usman, who got wind of the plot against her, had
on Wednesday fired a memo addressed to the Chief of Staff to the
President, stating her position and calling for involvement of the
office of the Accountant General of the Federation to establish the
true position of the authorities’ remittances.

In the memo she personally signed, Bala-Usman explained that the
Authority’s computation of its remittances to the CFR are concluded
arising from numbers from the audited financial statements using
the template forwarded to the authority from the Fiscal
Responsibility Commission and not budgetary provision.

She insisted that the NPA 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 N76.384 billion as evidenced in treasury receipts.

According to her, NPA had remitted a total of N82.687billion for
the period 2019 and 2020 pending the audit of the financial
statement at which point the amount so much computed arising from
the value of the operating surplus to the audited financial
statement will be remitted to the CFR.

“We wish to request that the Chief of Staff requests the Office
of the Accountant-General of the Federation who are the statutorily
custodian of status of payment to the CRF to provide clartrue
position of the Authorities remittances to the CFR,” she
submitted.

“At the end of the day, pundits are wondering if President
Buhari will discard his adopted daughter for an unreliable former
governor of Rivers State who ditched his predecessor Peter Odili
and not on speaking terms with his successor, Nyesom
Wike.”