What kind of MD does the NPA need?

Significantly, the mustard seed was sown in Zaria, at the Samaru main Campus of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), where she was born, nurtured and groomed when ABU was the hot bed of radical scholarship. More so, Dr. Yusufu Bala Usman, her late father, was the leading light of the leftist ideology. At that time, ABU […]

Significantly, the mustard seed was sown in Zaria, at the Samaru main Campus of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), where she was born, nurtured and groomed when ABU was the hot bed of radical scholarship. More so, Dr. Yusufu Bala Usman, her late father, was the leading light of the leftist ideology. At that time, ABU boasted of the best and the brightest minds in the intellectual world. From primary to secondary school, up to her first degree, Hajiya  Hadiza Bala Usman had lived and schooled in that environment, and naturally, the constant search for the truth, which is the essence of scholarship, has rubbed off on her over the years.
She grabbed a degree in Business Administration, went to the United Kingdom, and took a Master’s degree  at  the University of Leeds in 2009. With her blue blood background, instead of securing a cosy job in the banking or oil and gas sectors, she opted to be a researcher at the Centre for Democratic Development and Research Training (CEDDERT). Thereafter, she went to the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), where she met Malam Nasir El-Rufai, the then Director-General of the agency.
In 2003, when El-Rufai became the Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Hadiza joined him as Special Assistant on Project Implementation.
Afterwards, Hajiya Hadiza and a few patriots, across geo-political and religious divides, formed the Good Governance Group, a policy think tank that was committed to accountability. The group had x-rayed policies, critiqued state and federal budgets as well as highlighted abuse of office. Hadiza, according to reports, was the engine room of the group as she and her colleagues, on several platforms, made governments to account and criticized sundry infractions.
In politics, along with like minds, Hadiza teamed up with General Muhammadu Buhari to form the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). She contested for but lost the House of Representatives  for   Musawa/Matazu Federal Constituency. She moved on to other party engagements. In particular, Hajiya Hadiza and other CPC stalwarts, including El-Rufai, midwifed the historic merger with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) as well as a rump of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
The activism in her ignited the crusade for the Chibok school girls’ saga, where female students of the Government Secondary School Chibok in Borno State, were kidnapped. Hadiza, Ms Oby Ezekwesili, former Minister of Education and other activists had teamed up to form the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) campaign. Needless to say more on this for Nigerians know the tremendous achievement recorded.
Hadiza became the Chief of Staff of Governor El-Rufai, where she took charge of the goings on of the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, as Kaduna Government House is referred to. There, she re-organised the seat of power, drew up an elaborate organogram and insisted that political appointees deliver on their assigned schedules.
Today, Hadiza is the Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA). But critics have picked holes on her appointment, saying she lacks the experience,   that her Curriculum Vitae is not rich, her appointment was another example of the president’s nepotism. Third, some critics prefer ‘an insider’ who knows the NPA through and through, instead of a ‘neophyte’ who will spend years learning on the job. In short, some ‘pundits’ have dismissed her as a square peg in a round hole, on account of her age, academic qualification and experience.
At 40, with two degrees in her kitty, Hajiya Hadiza is qualified to be the Managing Director of NPA. As for nepotism, the accusation is not supported by facts because it was Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, the Minister of Transport, who nominated Hadiza to the president for the post and the last time I checked, the Minister is from Rivers and not Katsina State. In nominating her, Amaechi was guided by the need for geographical spread in his Ministry. Right now, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) are both headed by southerners and the NPA, Amaechi had argued, should go to the north for equitable distribution of appointments.
In any case, Alhaji Habib Abdullahi, the immediate past MD is from the north, so were his predecessors, Alhaji Sanusi Ado Bayero and Architect Aminu Dabo. Similarly, those who favour an insider for the top NPA job miss the point. Right now, the agency needs someone with fresh ideas, who can think outside the box and not an MD who has spent donkey years doing the same thing and expecting  different results.
Above all, the NPA needs a steady pair of hands and someone with integrity to reposition the six major ports under it. In this regard, Hadiza has earned her spurs as an Administrative Secretary of the Buhari Presidential Campaign Organisation, a member of APC Strategy Committee and the Director of Kaduna State APC Campaign Council. As Achebe noted in Things Fall Apart,   “when a child washes his hands clean, he can eat with a king’’. Clearly, Hajiya Hadiza’s clean hands, clean as they are, are what are needed to turn the NPA around.
Bayero, writes from Kaduna State.