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Business News of Tuesday, 10 March 2020

Source: www.mynigeria.com

Hadiza Usman speaks on sleeping her way to become MD of NPA

Hadiza Usman Hadiza Usman

The managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, Hadiza Usman has stated that she didn't secure the position by having an affair with Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State.

Usman who served as El-Rufai's chief of staff between 2015 and 2016 disclosed this when she appeared on TVC in celebration of Women's Day.

“I am definitely not his girlfriend,” she said of El-Rufai. “The governor is my mentor and my boss.

“He has been very supportive of my career and the career of every other woman that has worked for him.

“As you are aware, Kaduna State is the first state in northern Nigeria that has an elected female deputy governor; so you can see he has that commitment having women in positions of authority so that rumour is completely untrue,” Usman said.

Ms Usman's appointment as the MD of the ports authority in 2016 was met with heavy criticism by people who saw traces of nepotism in it.

With her qualification for the role questioned, Ms Usman described the whole situation as something done to pull down women in a high position.

“These are the things they say to women to pull us down, they say for everything you have done in terms of showcasing your competence they always reference and attribute it to the fact that you are in a relationship with another person,” she said.

“The bottom line is that you got a job and you perform, so when people reference that you got there because you were somebody’s girlfriend, that is a pull-down,” Ms Usman said.

She was also asked to speak on the issue of nepotism in the Buhari-regime.

“There is a lot of issues that the presidency has been appointing northerners into key positions,_ she said.

“What I would say is that, the minister of finance — is the person not capable and competent or not qualified? The managing director of NPA — has the person not performed well or not?

“So to that extent when we narrow our limits and our competence to our ethnic and religious backgrounds I think it is reducing what we are as a people. And people should be ascribed to be in position because of their capacity and competence not based on where they come from,” she said.