NIGERIANS are not relenting in their call for a probe into the controversial appointment of Aisha, daughter to the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari, as a top official of the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA).
NSIA manages the nation’s Excess Crude proceeds.
Despite her questions over her qualification, Kyari’s daughter was recently unveiled as an assistant vice-president of the body, an appointment allegedly done outside the due process.
But Nigerians are having none of it and are demanding that she must step down.
The latest call for a reversal of the appointment came from an anti-corruption civil society organisation, Coalition Against Corruption and Bad Governance (CACOBAG).
The group placed a probe burden on the president, vowing that a no-show would compel a series of civil actions soon.
A release on Saturday, signed by the group’s chairman, Alhaji Toyin Raheem, expressed worry that Ms Abba Kyari’s appointment was considered controversial because it violated set procedure at the NSIA.
The group said, “according to media reports, the position was not publicly advertised, contrary to what was expected of such position. Besides, Aisha Abba Kyari clearly does not meet the criteria for the role. She has just five years working experience at the National Integrated Power Project where she worked up until February 2019 when she got the NSIA job. Her appointment which is a level 3 appointment is the highest level in the organisation, whereas the average working experience for that level is 10 years.”
The NGO stressed that such practice at the highest level of government should be at variance with the anti-corruption posture of the Buhari administration.
The statement further states, “more disturbing is the report that the controversial appointment followed some arm-twisting and back deals with the top management of NSIA.
“Equally disturbing is the revelation that the new employee is starting up with an annual package of N32 million. We have chosen to call for a thorough investigation of this case because a similar thing happened in Pension Commission recently, and at the end of the probe, those involved were relieved of their job.
“Five days after the Abba Kyari employment scandal leaked in the media, neither the presidency nor the management of NSIA has deemed it fit to deny any of the following claims that: members of staff at the NSIA are infuriated by the appointment; that a few of the high-level personnel privy to the recruitment initially refused to interview Ms. Abba-Kyari; that one of such persons include an executive director, Stella Ojekwe-Onyejeli, who vehemently rejected the suggestion; that the ED was, however, arm twisted into playing along as the pending confirmation of her appointment to become a second-term ED became an instrument of blackmail; that her appointment was eventually confirmed sometime in March 2019 after she acquiesced; that Halima Buba, a board member at the NSIA who was also invited to observe the process, refused to take part; that despite all this, Ms Aisha Abba Kyari has since resumed.”
The group said this was not the first time the Buhari government would be involved in secret recruitment scandal involving relatives of highly-placed persons in his cabinet, adding that a similar one occurred at the Central Bank of Nigeria in 2017 involving children of some cabinet ministers and a nephew of the president.
and then