Last week revelation that the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) under Miss Hadiza Bala Usman failed to remit over N165 billion to the Federation Account between 2016 and 2020 and her resultant apparent indictment and actual suspension, didn’t come as a surprise to informed Nigerians. It has been an open secret that all the while, that the NPA and a number of agencies classified as, ” lucrative”, are cesspools of corruption and cash cows from which officials milk the nation dry with breathtaking recklessness.
In the unfolding case of the NPA scam or, “Hadizagate” as it may turn out to be, the Action Democratic Party (ADP) is calling on Nigerians not to allow this to be swept under the carpet or lost in obfuscating abracadabra. Let us insist on a full-scale investigation by a credible team of investigators instead of the dubious sham of a panel of cronies empanelled by persons already mentioned as potential accomplices in the scam. Is it not a hoax and an assault on our collective intelligence that they expect us to believe in the credibility of a panel under a director supported by other lower officers in the Ministry of Transport under the supervision of Mr Rotimi Amaechi as the minister?
Further, in carrying out its assignment, the Amaechi’s so-called investigative panel obviously cannot but rely on documents obtained from the NPA which is now under the supervision of a Muhammed Koko, who before now, has strategically worked all along with Hadiza Bala Usman as the executive director of finance and accounts at the agency. Could it have been possible for Bala-Usman to have all alone committed such a monumental act of financial misconduct without the input or knowledge of Koko? Also, why the appointment of Koko as the acting MD of NPA in clear contravention of standard administrative procedures by which, the most senior officer in charge of administration or operations and NOT Finance, is the one to be appointed in acting position in the event of a vacancy in the office of the chief executive?
The answer to the above puzzles may be found in the widely reported intimate relationship between Koko and Amaechi way back to the latter’s tenures as speaker and governor in Rivers state which is said to have culminated in the appointment of the former banker as executive director of finance and accounts at the NPA on the emergence of Amaechi as minister of transportation in 2015.
The ADP wishes to make it clear that it does not have a tinge of sympathy for Hadiza Usman over her ordeal. If anything, our party sees her as steaming in her own stew having been one of the architects of the political contraption, the APC, whose governance has led to unprecedented economic retardation, poverty, and ravaging insecurity in the last six years. While the ADP is in no way taking sides, the party is of the position that there is much more to the unfolding show of shame at the NPA beyond the picture being portrayed in the public domain. We believe that some of the actors are not as altruistic as they are making the public to believe.
A number of credible news outlets have also explained the latest mind bungling scam at the NPA as a result of the umbrage of some top functionaries of the APC federal government over the reluctance of the NPA’s management to “play along” in a plot to fleece the nation of millions of dollars through a phony contract for the supply and installation of “cargo tracking devices” at the seaports.
In the light of this, the ADP is, firstly, reiterating its demand for a thorough, transparent and full-scale investigation into the allegation of over N165 billion allegedly unremitted by the NPA between 2016 and 2020. Our party vehemently objects to the “Administrative panel” presently entrusted with the task because, in our view, that will tantamount to asking Amaechi to sit in judgement over his own case.
Secondly, in order to make for a credible probe, the ADP is of the strong view that on the grounds of his alleged moral baggage and administrative anomalies in his appointment, the NPA acting managing director, Muhammed Koko, must therefore be replaced to enhance equity and transparency in the dispensation of justice.
The ADP is advocating that while the scope of investigation of the allegation of the N165 billion should be widened to cover the entire finances of the NPA from 2015 to date, a similar exercise should be conducted into the books of the other “lucrative” agencies and departments where humongous sums of funds have been obviously diverted or siphoned into private coffers. The ADP believes that will be a more effective panacea to the pulsating economy than the resorts to reducing the salaries of the nation’s workforce as being suggested by some insensitive and coldblooded government functionaries.
As it is, the above observations and recommendations cannot see the light of day, for as long as the man at the helm of affairs of the country decides to be mute and aloof even when national exigencies demand otherwise. In spite of this known tendency, the Action Democratic Party is hereby once again stridently calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to come out of the cozy cocoon of the Villa and demonstrate leadership. This is one yet such momentous reasons for the president to prove he has not abdicated his solemnly sworn covenant with the electorate. It is another auspicious time for our leader to let the citizens appreciate that he is indeed there, awake and in charge as the pilot of the ship of our nation.
If he must be told the truth, it is time President Buhari realised that those to who he has entrusted or bequeathed the burden of leadership have simply been running their own show by feathering their own nests. It is amazing that a president who wishes to leave a legacy of a crusader against corruption should appear so complacent and comfortable with a swarm of brazen, unabashed kleptomaniacs.
Engineer Sani is the ADP national chairman
