A security detail attached to the Minister of Transport, Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman, gave the Director General of the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Security Agency (NIMASA),
Dr. Patrick Akpobolukeme, the shock of his life on Thursday when he practically bundled the man out of the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja.
Sources confirmed that the action of the security detail may not be unconnected with the festering bad blood between officials of the ministry and NIMASA over the running of affairs of the agency.
It was learnt that trouble started for the Director General when he decided to visit the Minister of Transport on a mission to congratulate him on his re-appointment at about 5pm on Thursday.
Eyewitnesses told Saturday Tribune that the DG was promptly stopped by aides of the Minister who were said to have related with him(the DG) on several occasions.
One of the security details, described as the Chief Detail was said to have asked Akpobolukeme to identify himself. The embarrassed DG was said to have retorted: “You don’t know me?”
A source told Saturday Tribune that the security officials had earlier stopped the navy security operatives guarding the Director General at the entrance to the minister’s office.
“But amid being shoved and elbowed, the DG left the main entrance of the minister’s office without seeing the minister. His attempts to call some senior officials of the ministry to witness the show of shame were also not responded to. So, he left disappointed,” a ministry official who witnessed the scene said.
Chief Press Secretary in the ministry, Mr. Biodun Oladunjoye, told Saturday Tribune that he did not witness the event. He however referred the Saturday Tribune to his boss, the Deputy Director of Press, Mr. Kingsley Agha.
However, sources confirmed that the bad blood between the Ministry of Transport and the NIMASA DG has to do with the running of the agency and the award of some lucrative contracts.
For instance, a source said that the DG offended a lot of people when he unilaterally cancelled the decision to hire generator for office use at the rate of N150, 000 daily, for the past three years.
The deal at the end of last year had cost the agency N1.6billion, a source said.
The DG was also said to have blocked the bid to hire patrol boats at the rate of $11,000 per day and procurred boats that were donated to the agency which costs it only N330,000 to maintain on a daily basis.
“The trouble is that the DG is targeting the cartel and their sources of undue income and he cannot try that without getting a fight,” a source in the ministry said, adding that the manhandling of the DG was one of the outcomes of his perceived recalcitrant attitude.
Mr Kingsley Agha while reacting to the incident, told Saturday Tribune in a telephone chat that security details in the ministry were worried seeing the NIMASA DG in the company of armed naval men.
He said that the men simply asked the DG to identify himself but that the man flared up and refused to enter the ministry.
Agha said that the DG was not harassed as claimed. culled from Saturday Tribune
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