NPA Employment: South West Dominates Senior Staff Positions

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has denied allegations of lopsided appointments of Northerners in the agency, saying that South West still has the highest number of staff in the senior cadre.

The clarification is coming on the heels of reports in the media that the NPA was highly northernised.

According to the agency, these allegations are unfounded and riddled with untruth because, out of the 302 senior staff in NPA,
South West controls a total of 75 slots with 2 General Managers (GM) 13 Assistant General Managers (AGM) and 60 Principal Managers (PM)

The South South has 54 slots with 1 General Manager, 10 Assistant General Managers, and 43 Principal Managers. South East controls 50 slots with 4 GMs, 10 AGM and 36 PMs. NorthWest has 34 slots with 5 General Managers, 3 AGM and 26 PMs.

The North-East controls 44 slots with 7 General Managers, 10 AGMs, and 27 PMs while North-Central has 3 GMs, 6 AGM and 36 PMs.

In a statement issued yesterday by the General Manager Corporate and Strategic Communications, Eng Adams Jatto, the appointment and promotion of General Managers and Asst. General Managers are routinely guided by vacancy, exigencies, seniority, competency and strict application of Federal Character Principle in order to ensure equity and even distribution of positions in the organisation.

“General Managers are usually appointed from the pool of Assistant General Managers who would ordinarily have been in the service of the Authority for long enough to have acquired significant experience in every aspect of the NPA’s operations”

“Records at the moment, show that while some zones may have fewer representation in General Manager cadre, they have higher representation in the two other most senior roles of Assistant General Manager and Principal Managers”

“Stakeholders and the general public should also kindly note that while the General Manager, Finance is from the South East, the offices of General Manager, Seaview and General Manager Accounts do not exist, contrary to the reports being circulated”

“On allegations that some retired General Managers have had their tenures extended on contract in order to stop their “potential successors” from succeeding them, management asserts that this is totally untrue”

“The two cases that were mentioned, General Manager, Human Resources Mr. Yahaya Bukar (Aug.2018-Aug 2020) and General Manager, Engineering, Engr Ahmed Rufai Mohammed( Feb 2020-2021) had their tenures legally extended for the specific reason of the completion of some of the very important projects that were started within the period of their services as General Managers”

“This situation also applied to the immediate past General Manager, Finance, Mr Simeon Aniobi, whose tenure was extended between Oct 2017 and October 2019”

“The management of the Authority is confident to say that it is guided by principles of fairness, equity and the law of the country in all its operations” he stated