Why Ngige can’t inaugurate Kokori as NSITF chair —Sources

It emerged at the weekend that Minister of Employment, Labour and Productivity, Dr. Chris Ngige, can no longer inaugurate former General Secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Comrade Frank Kokori, as chairman, board of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), due to the decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to reassign the former labour leader.

Sources close to the ministry, who put together inside details of the ongoing saga between the minister and the organised labour, said the initial appointment of Kokori was faulty, as he was found not to be “a fit and proper person” for the chairmanship of the NSITF.

According to the documents put together by friends of the ministry, the original appointment of Kokori as board chairman of NSITF failed to follow due process as stipulated by the Act setting up the Fund.

The sources claimed that Kokori was recommended by the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ayuba Wabba, to then acting President Yemi Osibajo against the dictates of the enabling law.

According to the friends of the ministry, when President Buhari was fully briefed by the minister of labour, following an extensive review, the president had appropriately reassigned Kokori to the Pa Michael Imoudu Institute of Labour Studies, while a fit and proper candidate had been nominated to chair the board of the NSITF.

The document prepared by the sources further read: “From the foregoing, it is clear that the appointment of the chairman for board of NSITF is a straightforward engagement by the minister recommending a fit and proper, neutral person to Mr. President for appointment.”

According to the sources, the president of NLC had, in 2017, approached the minister to inform him that he and other social partner, the then DG NECA, had submitted a nominee for post of NSITF chairman to the office of the vice president.

They said the minister had immediately told the NLC boss that the nomination was incongruous and that it was a breach of the law.

The sources stated that the minister had insisted that the move was not only incongruous, but was also an erosion of the minister’s function to nominate “fit and proper persons” to the offices listed in the Act.

The document prepared by the sources further read: “Further investigations by the minister revealed that NECA DG at the time neither participated nor had any hand in the so-called nomination.

“The minister promptly wrote to the acting president to point out the anomaly and inform him that by his discussion with the SGF, the NSITF was a specialised board which chairman needed to be shopped for, more so with the peculiar financial distress afflicting the organisation then and that it was not for NLC to make such a nomination in consonance with the Act.”

The document further indicated that following some representations to the minister, he had called for the curriculum vitae of Mr. Kokori, but that immediately, the NLC had written a congratulatory letter to the nominee and thereafter leaked the same to the media.

“All these antics were aimed at blackmailing and railroading the minister and Mr. President into a forced acquiescence. Comrade Kokori himself went to Gani Fawehinmi Annual Lecture in January 2018 and rained abuses on the minister for delaying his inauguration as chairman, following his appointment in November, 2017 and accused the minister of trying to be in charge of NSITF to award contracts and milk the juice in the place and favour the Igbo and his village people as recruits into the NSITF,” it said.

According to the document, N62 billion had been looted from the NSITF between 2011 and 2016, and when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was called in, it uncovered monumental fraud, including payment of N5 billion without vouchers.

The document stated that following the huge fraud discovered at the NSITF, the minister had put in place an Administrative Panel of Inquiry to further clean up the Fund and that the recommendations of the panel were now being implemented religiously.

“Meanwhile, the minister, after briefing Mr. President on the damaging EFCC report and the little recovery, instituted an Administrative Panel of Inquiry into the finances of NSITF and ancillary matters thereto, in order to assist government  determine administrative and financial weaknesses of NSITF and enable it strengthen the system, block and prevent such occurrences, and especially find out how the chairman – a part time position – and the social partner directors transmuted into executive chairman and executive directors respectively.

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“The minister, in exercise of the functions of his office and recommendations of the panel, sought the help of the immediate-past Commissioner for Insurance of NAICON and got a square peg to fill the square hole. That was how Mr. Austin Enajemo-Isire, a chartered accountant, Fellow, Chartered Institute of Insurance of Nigeria (CIIN), Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) and Chartered Institute of Taxation (ACTI), came in.

“This candidate has a rich background needed as an insurance executive to chart a new course for the NSITF. The minister has never met Mr. Enajemo-Isire until he was recommended after the CV evaluation,” it added.

According to the document, the minister had moved to inaugurate the new nominee recently, but the exercise was disrupted by labour.

“The minister also recommended Comrade Kokori to head the board of the MINILS, a Diploma-awarding institute named after veteran labour Leader, Michael Imoudu, and the president magnanimously approved,” the document read.