BEVERLY HILLS, May 08, (THEWILL) – This is obviously not the best of times for Hadiza Bala-Usman, the erstwhile Managing Director of Nigeria Ports Authority. Hadiza, a card-carrying member of the ruling party, All Progressives Congress, must have thought that being a member of the party would put her in the good books of President Muhammadu Buhari. Of course, the fact that she belongs to the party must have been instrumental to her appointment at the helm of the NPA, as some critics, who hardly believe she earned it by any logical means, claim. But she never expected, however, that the ‘immunity clause’ that supposedly came with being in the president’s good books could be revoked anytime. This explains why she found it hard to believe that she was suspended from office and insisted that until the President communicated directly to her, she remained the MD of NPA. While she was still in denial mode, news of the commencement of an investigation on her five-year tenure was announced by one of Buhari’s spokesmen, Garba Shehu, via Twitter. While the official reason for her sack hasn’t been made public yet, the real reason for her ‘suspension’ is undermining her supervising minister, Rotimi Amaechi, the Minister of Transport.
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According to reliable sources, Bala-Usman, who was first appointed in July 2016, had by-passed Amaechi to get other people to make overtures to the President for her reappointment. Luckily, it worked as the President reappointed her for a second tenure in January 2021. Now the gaffe in this is that, at the time of her reappointment, her first tenure was yet to expire (it will expire in May 2021), but she got the President to think her tenure had expired and she was due for reappointment.
Miffed by her effrontery and disregard for him, Amaechi, who has the ears of the President, approached him to point out this anomaly. President Buhari was said to have been furious and promised to fix the issue which he did through her ‘suspension’.
One begins to wonder how Hadiza’s boyfriend, Aliko Dangote, the wealthiest man in Africa who has his ears and eyes in high places, missed this underground move and failed to act quickly to prevent the president’s hammer from falling on her. Did he know what was to come and deliberately allowed it to happen for reasons best known to him or was it simply an oversight? Perhaps he may deploy his arsenal to ensure his babe gets a soft landing. Who knows? We await unfolding events.
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