Bala Usman said Amaechi has recovered from his failed presidential bid and is looking to crawl back into public life.
The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman, has fired some salvos the way of her former boss and immediate past Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi over the latter’s recent utterances.
Bala Usman held sway as the Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) from 2016 to 2021, when he was suspended and subsequently relieved of her job by then-President Muhammadu Buhari over allegations bordering on mismanagement.
The NPA was under the supervision of Amaechi, and he reportedly flagged the alleged infractions to Buhari, who commissioned an Administrative Panel of Inquiry that later indicted Bala Usman.
But in her book titled: ‘Stepping on Toes: My Odyssey at the Nigerian Ports Authority,’ the presidential aide debunked all the allegations against her.
“The lies were too many. For instance, she claimed she was not invited by the panel. I even came with the memo of the president, where the president endorsed her removal,” the former Rivers State Governor said.
Responding in a statement on Saturday, October 28, 2023, Bala Usman described the former minister’s utterances as an attempt to get back into public life after losing his presidential bid.
Recall Amaechi finished second in the presidential primary election of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won by Tinubu. He has since caught the figure of a mere passenger in the party after the President ignored him for his political foe in Rivers, Nyesom Wike.
Meanwhile, Bala Usman believes Amaechi’s latest criticism was a way to gain public attention after a few months in political oblivion.
She said she had responded to virtually all the allegations levelled against her.
“He made so much fuss about whether I gave him a birthday gift or not. 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.
“He referenced that I worked under him from 2013 and inferred that anyone working under him for that period would have given him birthday presents. I wonder why it should be automatic to give anyone birthday presents because you work for them. Such entitlement disposition is responsible for a lot of misbehaviours exhibited by people like Mr Amaechi when Nigeria bestows them with opportunities for public office. The truth is that no one owes you anything!
“In any case, I only worked with him between December 2014 to May 2015. So, how many birthdays would have gone past within that period that I would have given him “a lot of birthday presents,” as he claimed?
‘If indeed I offered him a present while he was Minister and he turned down my gift, why then did he complain that amongst my “many crimes”, was the fact that I never gave him a birthday present? The Minister should please stop ridiculing himself by fabricating these stories that do not add up.
“It is a good thing to see that the former Minister has finally recovered from his failed presidential bid and is crawling back into public life. However, he should not and cannot make Hadiza Bala Usman the subject of his attempt at a rebound.
“Mr Amaechi would definitely have his perspective of the events of the five years I served Nigeria as Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority under his supervision. There is no problem with that, but when he shares his perspective, I suggest that he endeavours to stick to the facts and resist the apparently usually overwhelming urge to speak arbitrarily and spread falsehood,” Bala Usman’s statement partly read.
