Bello-Koko breaks 11-year appointment jinx in NPA

Bello-Koko breaks 11-year appointment jinx in NPA

*As Chief Nasiru becomes Head of Corporate Affairs Unit

(Report by Ray Ugochukwu)

Acting Managing Director on the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mallam Mohammed Bello-Koko, has jettisoned the eleven-year obnoxious practice of making rookies to head the Corporate Affairs Department of the agency.

He did this with appointment of Chief Ibrahim Nasiru to be the General Manager (GM), Corporate & Strategic Communications.

For the past eleven years former Managing Directors of NPA had always gone outside the department to poach retiring officers to head the department.

The phony practice started under th e former MD, Mallam Habib Abdullahi in 2010 when he moved Mallam Musa Iliya, who was AGM, Public Affairs to Special Duties after his promotion as GM.

Before the appointment, Nasiru was Assistant General Manager (AGM), (C&SC) where he had always held sway as a stop-gap in between the various appointments of retiring officers brought from outside to head the critical unit.

At the exit of the last GM of the unit, Mr Olaseni Alakija, Seabreeze News had on November 4, 2021 in a punchy news analysis protested against the ugly practice of recruiting non-professional Public Relations practitioners from alien departments to head the unit. Alakija was of the Risk & Enterprise Department before he was moved to C&SC. The online publication called on Bello-Koko to immediately halt the ugly practice which had contributed to the present poor public image of NPA.

Aside Chief Nasiru, six other General Managers and 10 as Assistant General Managers have been appointed.

According to a press statement signed by the new image maker of the organization, this was in line with the management’s commitment to employees’ motivation and service excellence.

The other new General Managers include Mrs Moltok Josephine Adar, formerly the Asst. General Manager – Overseas Office is now General Manager Servicom; Ahmad M. Umar, formerly the Asst. General Manager Accounts, now General Manager Human Resources; Sheidu-Shabi Khadija Ife, formerly the Asst. General Manager Environment, now General Manager MD’s Office; and Ngini Chukwuma, formerly Asst. General Manager Facility Management, now the General Manager, Lands and Asset Administration.

Others are Odunsi Opeoluwa, formerly Asst. General Manager Finance, who now becomes the new General Manager Finance; and Mohammed Shehu, formerly Asst. General Manager Procurement, who takes over as General Manager Tariff & Billing.

While congratulating the new heads of divisions on their appointments, the Ag. Managing Director admonished them to regard their new appointments as a call to duty and service to the nation thus, commit their optimal best to achieving the vision of the Authority.