Hadiza Usman, former Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), has fired her reply to the former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who accused her of peddling falsehoods about him in her memoirs. She said the former minister’s speech was characterised by “exaggerations, manipulation of the truth and outright lies.”
Ms Usman had written about her experiences as the head of the NPA under Mr Amaechi and how he allegedly orchestrated her removal.
In the book launched in April, she claimed Mr Amaechi wanted her removed at all costs because of personal grudges, including her refusal to lavish him with favours including birthday presents.
Responding to the allegations for the first time since the book was launched, Mr Amaechi said recently at an event that Ms Usman’s book was filled with falsehood so much he contemplated a reply.
Amaechi said Ms Usman’s removal was endorsed by former President Muhammadu Buhari because the panel found her guilty.
He said part of the charges against her was the approval of contracts up to N2.8 billion without appropriation even though her approval limit was N2.5 million.
According to him, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) later found that despite the lack of appropriation, the contract was inflated by N58 million which she was asked to refund.
Amaechi also accused her of granting waivers that are beyond her powers as the head of NAP as well as changing agreements already approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) without consultations.
Hadiza’s Reply
However, in her reply to Amaechi, Ms Usman also accused him of being economical with the truth.
She said apart from “exaggerations, manipulation of the truth and outright lies” in Amaechi’s speech, there’s nothing she had not addressed in her book if the former minister had cared to read.
She said the allegation of not remitting N165 billion of operating surpluses to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) for which Amaechi sought and obtained former President Buhari’s approval to investigate the accounts of the NPA was not in the queries she received from the ministry.
Ms Usman said the query she received from the Federal Ministry of Transportation and her response was published in her book.
She also denied Amaechi’s claim that she was indicted on some ten counts.
“I do not know what these ten counts are, because no one communicated any such indictments to me,” she said.
She also countered his claims that she awarded contracts worth N2.8 billion without appropriation.
“This is false,” she said, noting there was nothing of such in the list of infractions conveyed to her in a query arising from the reports of the Administrative Panel of Inquiry he set up.
She said the only issue relating to a contract award in the query was about the emergency purchase of operational vehicles for N1.2 billion without approval from the Federal Executive Council.
“In my response to the query of the N1.2 billion expenditure, I explained that we made the procurement pursuant to the provisions of Sections 43 (1) (a), (2), (3) and (4) of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 (PPA) which allows procuring entities to purchase items due to the emergency nature of the need and obtain the necessary approval upon conclusion of the procurement,” she said.
She said her response to the query on the waivers she granted explained the circumstances and justifications for all the waivers granted by the NPA management, and are published in her book.
She also accused the former minister of twisting facts when he spoke about the alleged “unilateral execution” of a supplemental agreement in respect of the Lekki Deep Sea Port Concession Project.
Ms Usman said she had responded that: “The Authority was of the view that the supplemental agreement was operational in nature and does not alter any major aspect of the concession agreement as it only rescheduled construction timeframe for a berth and allowed other players to partake in the development of dry bulk since the company was constrained to embark on the construction at that time …”
Speaking on his comments about birthday gifts, she said she only worked with him between December 2014 and May 2015, wondering how she could have given him “lots of birthday presents” within the period.
She said: “While this is a trivial issue, the question he should answer is whether he complained to someone that I never gave him a birthday gift as Minister or not.
“If indeed I offered him a present while he was Minister and he turned down my gift, why then did he complain that amongst “many crimes”, was the fact that I never gave him a birthday present?”
Background
Ms Usman was suspended as the head of the NPA in May 2021, following Amaechi’s request to then-President Muhammadu to probe the accounts of the government agency.
Amaechi, then the minister supervising the NPA, had alleged that the NPA failed to remit about N165 billion operating surpluses into the Consolidated Revenue Fund Account of the federation.
He also set up an administrative panel of inquiry to investigate the affairs of the NPA, including awards of contracts from 2016 to May 2021. The panel found no wrongdoing against Ms Usman, yet she was removed from office and replaced with Mohammed Bello-Koko, who served as her executive director, of finance and administration.
She would later claim in her book that Mr Amaechi simply wanted her out of the NPA at all costs due to personal grudges.
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