THE Federal Capital Territory (FCT) chapter of the National Union of Electricity Employee NUEE, on Wednesday, resisted an alleged plan by the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola to remove the current Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Engineer Atiku Abubakar.
The union, in a brief congress held at the TCN’s headquarters yesterday in Abuja, queried the rationale behind his removal.
While addressing newsmen, Chairman NUEE FCT chapter, Comrade Wisdom Nwachukwu who spoke for the union, explained that the Minister, through the Permanent Secretary, Louis Edozien had issued a letter to the MD, TCN two days ago, to handover to one Mr Usman gor Mohammed who is an account personnel at the African Development Bank (ADB).
He wondered how, an accountant could be appointed to head a highly technical company such as the TCN.This, he stated, was not farfetched from the soon to come $364million grant to TCN by the World Bank.
He alleged that the Minister intended to bring in a new set of management who would dance to the tunes of the Ministry’s leadership.
In his explanations, he said: “On Friday last week, we were in this building when we got a message from our national secretariat; the contention was that the Minster of Power, Fashola, had informed Atiku our MD that somebody was coming to take over his position through the Permanent Secretary and it is with immediate effect.
“And the man told them that he cannot understand where such is being done but be that as it may, he said he will not handover the company to an accountant who rose through him.
“Even if we are to look at the indices of promotion, the highest promotion the guy could have gotten now is principal manager, so the MD told them he cannot handover to such person and if they want him, they should pass through the normal process. But sneaking in to tell him to handover is out of it. And this guy is an accountant by profession and this is a company that is highly technical driven.
“The indices of the staff provision here should be 75 per cent technical and 25 per cent non technical so why should you now bring in an accountant.
“We did our investigation and information came that yes, World Bank is bringing in some money for a project, now the ministry is bringing in their own persons who will…they say he who pays the piper dictates the tune. So, he is bringing in his own persons who will come in and do his job. This is a kind of interference with impunity.”
He further disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari who was informed of the new development, had also ordered a stay of action on the decision but added that the Minister ignored the order.
He said: “This information has gone to the Secretary General of the Federatio(SGF), it has gone to the President and Mr President called the Minister to stay action on the issue till further notice, the issue here is when the President of a country has spoken on an issue of this nature, who calls the shot.
“We thought that the matter has been laid to rest since Friday after those levels of interaction, now in the letter they brought, they wrote a request in the Secondment of Mr Usman Gor Mohammed from African Development Bank as the transitional executive officer of the TCN.
“So in this situation, if you want to remove a substantive MD like this, is this the process? Atleast you should give a period of three months for handing over.”
To this end, he warned that the Union would resist the alleged coup even as it stated that the TCN, under the new leadership has judiciously utilized the first grant of $300million issued by the World Bank to the company.
Some TCN staff carried placards with inscriptions;”ADB loan can be managed by TCN”, No further destruction of the power sector” among others.
and then