The seeming absence of due process in the current administration has again come to the fore as the Office of Vice President and Secretary to the Government of the Federation have been fingered in wrongful disengagement of Maryam Danna, a top shot at the Niger Delta Power Holding Company, Economic Confidential is reporting.
Danna, who was disengaged in controversial circumstances, is a Chartered Account from Borno State and had risen from the position of Auditor at the defunct National Electric Power Authority in 1992 to General Manager, Audit & Compliance at NDPHC in 2011.
The NDPHC is incorporated under the Companies and Allied Matters Act as a private limited liability company with terms and conditions of employment and disengagement.
It also has a Board, which consists of the Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as Chairman; six governors, one each from the country’s six geopolitical zones; and four Ministers, namely that of Finance, Power, Petroleum and Justice.
Without any query, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Engr. Babachir David Lawal, issued the letter conveying the notification of Danna’s disengagement as a GM with NDPHC with effect from June 10, 2016, while a Special Adviser to Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo was appointed as acting Managing Director of the company.
Initially, the SGF had announced the dissolution of the Executive Management of the NDPHC by the Federal Government and directed the Managing Director of the company to handover to the aide of Vice President.
He also directed all the Executive Directors to hand over immediately to the most senior officers in their respective departments.
Curiously, there are 12 other General Managers of the same status with Danna, who were allowed to remain in their positions.
They are staff of the company, like Danna, but not members of the dissolved Executive Management.
The disengaged chartered Accountant, who started her career in the then NEPA in 1992 as an Officer II Audit, rose through the ranks to the position of Assistant General Manger (Audit) in 2010, while in the service of Power Holdings Company of Nigeria before moving to the Niger Delta Holding Company, where she was promoted to the rank of General Manager (Audit and Compliance) on July 1, 2011.
Meanwhile, Economic Confidential is reporting that it is suspected that Danna, who is widely known as due process advocate, might have been persecuted by some persons close to powerful officials in government who might have felt aggrieved with some of her tough decisions while she was the Auditor in the office.
The magazine said it gathered that the Special Adviser to the Vice-President, who is appointed acting Managing Director of the company, was at one time a staff of one of the contractors to the NDPHC.
There is also a case of an Executive Director in NDPHC who never observed the mandatory one year National Youth Service Corps progamme but is currently serving as a Permanent Secretary in a “powerful” federal ministry with supervisory powers on the NDPHC.
Economic Confidential gathered that one of the Supervisory Ministers who investigated the case of unlawful disengagement of Danna has since written to President Muhammadu Buhari through the Chief of Staff, Abbah Kyari, for her reinstatement.
Danna hails from Borno, a State that is not only grossly underrepresented but also where Girl-Child Education is at its lowest ebb.
She is said to be a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation among others.
She is married and is reported not to have been found wanting in her 24 years of service to the country.
