Following the arrest of the managing director and four top officials of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and subsequent investigation of the agency for alleged fraud and corrupt practices, the minister of transportation, Mr Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, yesterday, paid an unscheduled visit to the headquarters of the NAMA to stem the uneasy calm and palpable crisis brewing in the airspace management agency.
Amaechi, during the visit, appointed the director of Engineering, Mr Emmanuel Anasi, to act as the head of the agency pending the completion of the investigation by the EFCC.
Abdulsalam and four others, namely, the director of Finance and Accounts, Mrs Clara Aliche, acting director of Procurement, Muyiwa Adegorite, general manager (Finance), Nurudeen Segun Agbolade, and Project manager, Mrs Felicia Agubata, have been in the EFCC custody since Friday last week when they were arrested by the operatives of the agency.
The crisis in the NAMA, a source said, might force the minister to quickly re-organise the NAMA for efficiency and the safety of the country’s airspace. A top official in the NAMA told our correspondent that Amaechi, on arrival at the headquarters of the agency in Lagos, went into a meeting that lasted for just 10 minutes with some staff members.
The EFCC had on February 12, 2016, arrested the top NAMA officials to explain how Abdulsalam and his predecessor both high-handedly signed off payments of over N3 billion on “questionable contracts” between 2013 and 2015.
In a petition titled “A clarion call for investigation of Financial Recklessness in the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency which has affected the performance of the agency and provision of efficient safety services,” by a respected stakeholder (name withheld), the EFCC lamented that the alarming and reckless manner in which, “the present and the immediate past chief executives of the NAMA have acted in expending public resources is frightening.”
Leadership…….
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