‘Why Sacked Heads Of FCTA Agencies Had To Go’

Above caption was a piece published in one of the national dailies  on October 4 2023 edition and it quickly caught my attention.

The reason being that as one who has been around for a while in the FCT and who expects more than the administration has offered so far, one was excited at the announcement of Barrister Nyesom Wike as minister.

Those of us in the FCT were encouraged in the hope that ther would be a semblance of real governance; something that can only be compared to the administration of the immediate-past governor of Kaduna state, Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai, then as FCT minister.

Expectations from the current FCT administration has no doubt increased the interest of the residents in governance. That is why every policy pronouncement made by Wike attracts more than a passing attention.

The issue at discussion is one of them. Wike had about two weeks ago removed the heads of 21 agencies in the FCTA and the wisdom behind that sweeping directive is being put to question by the referenced write up.

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My immediate response on reading the above was ‘no, he needn’t sack all if he doesn’t have to’. But then, can he sack even more than that number? To that I say ‘yes, if he has to’.

As for the career civil servants who were affected, my understanding is that Wike does not have to retire them and he didn’t retire them to the best of my knowledge. But it is within his power to remove them as heads of those agencies if by his own estimation, they do not fit into his plan.

This brings me to the case of the sacked managing director of Abuja Urban Mass Transport Company (AUMTCO), Mallam Najeeb Abdulsalam who was said to have been appointed just three months before his sack.

The reason his sack is being questioned is that his former staff protested against it. They reportedly claimed that he has done what no other CEO has done in the history of that company. But what exactly did he do? I am not sure any of the protester said so. What could he have done in three months?

Let us assume without conceding that Mallam Najeeb of AUMTCO provided an array of hope for the workers of the transport company and may have delivered, had Wike not fired him. On what basis should someone lump Mallam Najeeb whom his staff shed tears for (even if crocodile’s type)- to another CEO whom his own staff and traders across the markets of the FCT had protested against his protracted stay in office.

In the said write up, Wike was also vilified for not considering that the sacked managing director of Abuja Markets Management Limited, Abubakar Usman Faruk ‘was just reinstated by series of court orders less than three months ago’.

The write conveniently ignored the ugly details surrounding Abubakar Usman Faruk’s stay at AMML, in an effort at misleading the reading public to believing that the minister’s action was not thought through. A simple Google search of the name would have given the writer more than he bargained for, had he cared to.

Abubakar Usman Faruk was appointed by then FCT minister Adamu Aliero in April 4 2009. He was there until 2020 when the erstwhile minister Mohammed Musa Bello redeployed him following allegations of land grabbing and others.

He was directed to hand over to the most senior staff of AMML then and report to the Office of Director Human Resources (FCTA). He complied with this directives for three whole years within which he drew full salaries and allowance from AMML, some even upfront to 2024.

When the then minister reconstituted some boards including that of AMML, he again approached another court to challenge the legality of the board so reconstituted, sensing that the board was going to sound a final nail to his unending stay.

The court ruled that he was still a director of AMML going by the provision of CAMA 2020 but nowhere in the ruling was he reinstated as the MD of AMML as suggested by the said write up.

Also, the owners of the company made up of Abuja Investments Company Limited and Federal Capital Territory Administration sitting at an Extra-Ordinary General Meeting on the 17th of July 2023, relieved Mr Faruk of his job for ‘services no longer required’.

If there is just one person that should be fired among that 21 heads of FCT agencies, one does not see any other person more qualified than a CEO who has stayed a record 15 years in office including three years of no work but full pay.

The minister has his job cut out for him and should go ahead to deliver on it by ensuring that he immediately appoints people with shared vision and competence into those vacant positions.

– Ogundana writes from Abuja.