Your ebook is filled with lies, Amaechi replies ex-NPA boss Usman

Nigeria’s former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has spoken for the primary time on the allegations that he orchestrated the removing of the previous Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Usman, due to private grudges.

Ms Usman, in her ebook titled: “Stepping on Toes: My Odyssey on the Nigerian Ports Authority” launched in April, detailed her experiences and challenges as the pinnacle of the NPA and the accusations that led to her removing as the pinnacle of the federal government company.

She accused Mr Amaechi of orchestrating her removing as a result of she didn’t lavish him with favours, together with birthday items. She additionally accused him of sitting on directives already accepted by the president and chiding her for going over him to get it, which she stated was to get the work accomplished.

Ms Usman was suspended from workplace in Could 2021, following Mr Amaechi’s request to then President Muhammadu to probe the accounts of the NPA.

Mr Amaechi, then the minister supervising the NPA, had alleged that the NPA didn’t remit about N165 billion working surpluses into the Consolidated Income Fund Account of the federation.

He additionally arrange an administrative panel of inquiry to analyze the affairs of the NPA, together with awards of contracts from 2016 to Could 2021. The panel discovered no wrongdoing towards Ms Usman, but she was faraway from workplace and changed with Mohammed Bello-Koko, who served as her government director, finance and administration.

She would later write within the ebook that Mr Amaechi merely needed her out of the NPA in any respect value as a consequence of private grudges.

The ebook is filled with lies – Amaechi

Addressing the allegations within the ebook for the primary time, Mr Amaechi stated he had spent the previous months considering on whether or not or not he ought to reply as a result of “the lies have been simply too many.”

He spoke in Lagos at an annual lecture organised by The Area of interest on the theme: “Why we stride and slip: Management, Nationalism and the Nigerian situation”.

“The lies have been too many,” he was quoted as saying by Day by day Belief newspaper on the occasion.

He stated he determined to reply though greater than 90 per cent of individuals advised him to not.

Mr Amaechi stated Mr Buhari, then the president, endorsed her removing as a result of the panel discovered her responsible.

“She claimed she was not invited by the panel. I even got here with the memo of the president, the place the president endorsed her removing,” he stated.

He added that her removing was premised on the truth that she accepted contracts as much as N2.8 billion with out appropriation though her approval restrict was N2.5 million.

In response to him, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) later discovered that regardless of the shortage of appropriation, the contract was inflated by N58 million which she was requested to refund.

He stated: “Rely one is within the query of the truth that the panel says she is responsible; depend two is because of the truth that a Managing Director of NPA with N2.5 million approval restrict can approve N2.8 billion contract with no appropriation…”

Mr Amaechi additionally accused her of adjusting agreements already accepted by the Federal Government Council (FEC) with out consultations.

“The Federal Government Council, the President and Vice President together with the Minister of Transport will approve an settlement for Lekki Deep Sea Port, the MD of NPA will change it and when queried, she is going to say for nationwide curiosity, so we’re for Biafra curiosity?” he requested.

He additionally accused her of granting waivers she has no powers to grant on the NPA.

He stated: “She gave waivers to outstanding Nigerians, which she has no energy to present and these are {dollars} accruable to Nigeria’s economic system however she was daring to jot down a ebook or is it a pamphlet and Nigerians are following her, launching the ebook, so how will Nigeria transfer ahead?

“However let’s wait till they carry the unique copy as a result of if I provide the photocopy, you’ll say it’s pretend. I’ll present you the unique however I gained’t permit you to learn it since you would see the names of these outstanding Nigerians that have been indicted by the panel. I’ll relatively learn the areas that concern her and go away these outstanding Nigerians, they didn’t search for my hassle.”

Reacting to the claims that he was livid as a result of Ms Usmandid not get a birthday present from her, Mr Amaechi stated he had advised her to cease getting him birthday items when he turned a minister.

“She gave me a whole lot of birthday presents, from the time I met her to after I turned a minister. Once I turned a minister, the final birthday current she gave me was a giant returnee bag. So I stated no, that I’m now a minister. You at the moment are my subordinate, however she lied. Would you consider that anyone who labored below me from 2013 is not going to give a birthday current,” he stated.

Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Instances in partnership with Report for the World, which matches native newsrooms with proficient rising journalists to report on under-covered points across the globe