Hadiza Bala Usman, the former Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), has said that former Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi fired her because she did not offer him a birthday gift.
Usman claimed in her new book, “Stepping on Toes: My Odyssey at the Nigerian Ports Authority,” that several famous Nigerians visited with Amaechi shortly after she was ordered to “step aside” in May 2021, but he refused.
She stated that governors, the chief of the Nigeria Customs Service, Hameed Ali, and others asked the former minister to re-hire her, but he flatly refused, citing frivolous grounds of selfishness and her failure to accomplish “nothing for him.”
Hadiza wrote in the book.
“I know, for instance, that Governors elected on the platform of the APC, the Progressive Governors Forum, chaired by Governor Atiku Bagudu deliberated on the issue of my suspension and constituted a committee to intervene. The Governors’ team met with the Minister to discuss a resolution of the matter. He insisted that my management of the NPA had to be investigated due to the amount unremitted to the CRF (Consolidated Revenue Fund).
He even tried to sway the governors’ resolve by suggesting that the budget of the NPA was bigger than most of their state budgets, so they shouldn’t bother about me. When the governors persisted, he told them that the matter was no longer just within his purview and that they may need to approach the Head of Service of the Federation.
He told another person who tried to intervene that I was so selfish that did nothing for the NPA and never even gave him a birthday present! The Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd.) also made efforts to resolve the issue by intervening at various levels.”
