By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
The woes of the suspended Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) may just have begun as a coalition of Arewa youths and women, on Monday, threw its weight behind the action taken by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The group also called for a thorough probe into the activities of the agency under Usman’s watch in order to unearth what they believe is a large scale financial malfeasance.
Senator Masi claimed that her appointment into the NPA Board was wrongfully terminated at the instigation of Hadiza because she pointed out the same infractions that have now led to her suspension.
Meanwhile, in a statement Monday signed by its President, Hassan Abdullahi, and Secretary-General, Salamatu Aliyu, the group said: “We are compelled to speak on the recent ugly occurrences at the Nigerian Ports Authority. We want to be clear that we are fully in support of the suspension from office of the managing director of NPA, Hadiza Bala Usman by President Buhari. The issues and allegations that led to her suspension are indeed grave and to act otherwise by leaving Ms. Usman in office would have hampered the inquiry, which would have placed a huge dent on the anti-corruption war of the Buhari administration.”
The coalition further stated that, “Information in the public domain and at our private disposal, clearly shows that there is indeed trouble in NPA. The level of suspicious opaque accounting practices, financial discrepancies and mismanagement of the agency’s finances under Ms. Usman is not only worrisome but also alarming. Allegations backed with documents that the suspended NPA MD have been perpetrating huge, unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the government and drive the NPA’s budgets ever-higher need to be thoroughly investigated.’
“Also, Hadiza Bala Usman is accused of excessive increase in administrative operational expenses, extra-budgetary expenditures on hotel accommodation and under-disclosure of expenditures on hotel expenses, Corporate Social Responsibility Projects, etc. We can’t just ignore the allegations that NPA under Ms. Usman blatantly contravened Government policy on the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility Projects/Programmes and its records relating to CSR fell short of the level of compliance with the Public procurement Act, 2007. Procedures were flagrantly violated while huge expenditures running into billions of naira could not be justified.
Making reference to Senator Garba’s disclosure on the NPA malfeasance, the group said: “In a statement yesterday, Sen. Binta Masi Garba, a well respected foremost former northern female senator and member of NPA board, corroborated a lot of the stories of the financial mess Ms. Usman had turned the NPA into. Sen. Binta Garba went further to reveal more issues of financial discrepancies and fraud in the NPA and how the suspended MD had to plot her removal from the board because she was offended that Sen. Garba was asking questions about suspicious and opaque NPA finances. Certainly, all these cannot be swept under the carpet.
“We must express our disappointment with our sister, Hadiza Bala Usman. Her desperation to stop the administrative probe, her resort to ungodly media propaganda against the justified probe is obviously indicative of someone who has a lot to hide. Women and youths from our region are not known to exhibit this kind of ugly tendencies. We are shocked to learn that she ran NPA like an emperor and had shown total disdain to the ministry and its officials and treated board members and Executive Directors in the agency like mere appendages.
“Finally, we want to urge and warn the Ministry of Transportation and its minister, Rotimi Amaechi, to ensure that a thorough, transparent forensic probe is carried out on the NPA’s financial activities. Anything short of this will not serve the interests of Nigeria and will be unacceptable to Nigerians. We have read somewhere in the media that the probe panel may not be focusing on NPA financials. If that is true, it would be like clear daylight robbery of Nigeria by the Ministry of Transport and the Buhari administration. Nigerians want the financial probe of NPA and we insist that any financial malfeasance in the agency must be unearthed.”