Allegations of unfair and ethnically slanted appointments have been leveled against the Management of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) headed by the Director General, Bashir Jamoh.
Jamoh has been accused of nepotic favoritism against officials of the agency who are not from his northern region of the country and those who do not share similar religious belief with him.
Aggrieved officials of the state-owned agency at the weekend said since Jamoh assumed office in 2020, only staff members from the northern region are allowed to hold key positions while their counterparts from the south are sidelined.
The officials who spoke to SHIPS & PORTS, further said that among all the four zones and Abuja Office of NIMASA, none is headed by a southerner.
The four zones are – Western Zone based in Lagos State, Central Zone based in Delta State, Eastern Zone based in Rivers State, Northern Zone based in Plateau and the Abuja Office and are all being headed by persons from the northern region.
NIMASA’s Western Zone is headed by Kabir Munai from Katsina State, the Central Zone in Warri is headed by one Bappa M. Musa from Borno State, the Eastern Zone is headed by Yusuf Barde from Katsina State while the Northern Zone is headed by Waibe Auta from Plateau State. Also, the NIMASA Abuja Office is also headed by a northerner named Musa Zalani Attah from Adamawa State.
Also, all but one of the Port Service Controllers (PSC) in all the zones are northerners. They are Sani Zaria for Apapa and Abubakar Jiga for Ibeju Lekki, both under the Western Zone. The Port Service Controllers in the Eastern Zone are Nuhu Umar for Port Harcourt, Mohammed Ibrahim for Onne and Ibrahim Umar for Calabar while the Head of the Central Zone, Dappa M. Musa from Borno State, also acts as its Port Service Controller covering Ohgara, Sapele, Burutu and Forcadoes. Only one out of the existing seven PSCs of the agency, Chizoba Anyika (Tin Can Island Port) is a southerner, SHIPS & PORTS reported.
“In most cases, these staff were not the most senior or most competent when he asked them to assume office as Head. Never in the history of NIMASA has the agency been so religiously and tribally divided. The big question to be asked is: why are all the Heads of the Zones of NIMASA, which are located in the south, headed by only northerners?
“Because he is married to former President Muhammadu Buhari’s niece and because his first daughter is married to the former President’s nephew, the DG thinks he is above the law. Perhaps because the former President elevated him above his peers from the position of an Assistant Director to that of an Executive Director and later to Director-General, Bashir Jamoh thinks he can do anything and get away with it,” a senior staff of the agency who pleaded anonymity for fear of being victimized, said.
Jamoh has also been accused of sidelining the three Executive Directors appointed to serve with him in the Executive Management Team of the agency. The aggrieved staff said the NIMASA boss had continued to run the agency “as his personal property while institutionalising nepotism” since his assumption of office three years ago.
Procurement documents seen by Heritage Times HT revealed how the DG purchased lavish office properties in Central Area Abuja, Victoria Island Lagos, and in Port Harcourt Rivers State to the tune of over N30bn. The properties were reportedly criminally commissioned without office furniture suited in.
Further findings made by Heritage Times HT indicated that there has been wide speculations that most of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approvals the NIMASA DG got to undertake such huge spending, was facilitated by Tunde Sabiu Yusuf, his son in-law who happens to be a Personal Assistant to former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Thus, the staff are appealing to President Bola Tinubu to carry out a staff audit of the agency and probe the activities of Jamoh in the agency since 2020.
Before his appointment, Jamoh was the Executive Director, Administration, and Finance, at NIMASA.
