Suspended MD of Nigerian Ports Authority, Ms Hadiza Bala Usman (left) with President Muhammadu Buhari when the going was good
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the suspension of Hadiza Bala Usman who serves as Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).
Garba Shehu, the Presidential Spokesperson in a statement on Thursday, said the suspension followed a recommendation by the Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, to set up an administrative panel of inquiry to investigate the Management of the NPA under her watch. Mohammed Koko was appointed to take over while “the investigation is carried out.”
The panel is to be headed by the Director of Maritime Services in the Ministry while the Deputy Director of Legal Services in the same Ministry will serve as secretary. Bala Usman was first appointed as the NPA Managing Director in July 2016. In January, Buhari reappointed her as NPA MD, for an additional five-year tenure. She previously served as the Chief of Staff to Nasir el-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State, from 2015 to 2016.
In 2014, she co-founded the Bring Back Our Girls campaign to advocate the rescue of abducted Chibok schoolgirls. She is also a founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
It will be recalled that NPA recently launched Etó, an electronic truck call-up system, aimed at tackling the perennial logjam caused by articulated trucks within the Apapa Ports Corridor. The application (Eto) has since restored orderliness to truck movement as scheduling is now done automatically on a first-come, first-served basis.
