When Will Amaechi Pay the Price for Reported Missteps?

Odunayo Ajala queries the overbearing tendencies of the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi

As I sit to write this piece, a wave of indignation is sweeping over me. As a stakeholder in the Nigerian project and a citizen concerned about the future of the country, I am miffed by the failure of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration that prides itself as an anti-corruption, equity, and transparency brand to move from just barking to biting at one of the powerful ministers of the administration, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, despite reports of his acts that fly in the face probity.

If what one has read in the newspapers over the past couple of months is anything to go buy, Amaechi has on two occasions recently misled Buhari into taking decisions that do not just rob the country of millions of dollars in revenue, but also impacted negatively on the image of the country. Apart from causing the country to lose millions of dollars and embarrassingly misleading or deliberately hoodwinking the President on key and strategic contracts, Amaechi has also serially violated his oath of office with impunity that is suggestive of an ``untouchable or sacred cow.” That anyone would consider himself to be a sacred cow or be treated as such by the Buhari administration is in fact an incredulous irony, but this is what Nigeria seems to be grappling.

The first indication of an Amaechigate is the multi-billion International Cargo Tracking Note for Nigeria (ICTN) allegedly fraudulently conceived by the minister. The International Cargo Tracking Note (ICTN) scheme is an electronic cargo verification system that monitors the shipment of seaborne cargo and enables a real-time generation of vital data on ship and cargo traffic in and out of Nigeria.

This contract is now a subject of litigation at an Abuja court. According to a December 22, 2021, report in a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had restrained Amaechi, other agents and agencies of the Federal Government from taking any further step towards nominating any company or entity to be operators of the ICTN.

This is part of the details of a painfully uncomplimentary report published by a Oonline newspaper on November 1, 2021. Titled; “Buhari, Amaechi illegally award multi-billion maritime contract to medical company,”the newspaper told the whole world that the President and his minister committed illegalities by awarding contracts without due process to a non-qualified company.

The report said: “President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, have approved a huge national security-sensitive maritime contract to a medical company in a process the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) says is “embarrassing” and illegal…The development has unsettled the Buhari government, with senior officials sparring and trading accusations of bad faith and the BPP complaining of “procedural lapses” in carefully worded memos that only stopped short of directly accusing Mr Buhari and Mr Amaechi of lawlessness…The procurement agency said the contract was awarded in clear breach of the Public Procurement Act 2007.”

The report, to which the minister, has not given any denial, at least not to my knowledge, suggested that he deliberately hoodwinked the president into approving this illegal deal.

The newspaper report said further: “… In what kick-started the current process that is now stuck in controversy and abuse, Mr. Amaechi’s transport ministry, on September 11, 2020, sought the approval of the BPP to conduct a restricted/ selected tendering exercise to engage agents or partners for the implementation of the cargo tracking note scheme… But citing the “convoluted” circumstance of the initial contract, which attracted criminal investigation by the EFCC and the need to regain international confidence, the BPP rejected the selective tender request and, instead, asked the transport ministry to conduct international competitive bidding (ICB).

According to the newspaper, the BPP explained in its October 22, 2020, correspondence with Amaechi that the ICB was to ensure that reputable international firms with requisite experience and capacity to deliver on the job participated in the procurement process. Nevertheless, Amaechi defied this advice and went ahead with his plans! The newspaper report alleged that: “But surprisingly,” the BPP noted in a memo, the transport ministry on August 26, 2021, reverted to the public procurement regulator with an approval dated August 19, 2021, from the president to adopt a direct procurement in favour of MedTech Scientific Limited, a healthcare company, in partnership with Rozi International Nigeria Limited, a property development company.”

Given the alleged impunity, including wrongly obtaining presidential assent and allegedly sidestepping laid down procedures to award the contract to a non-qualifying company, the BPP was said to have expressed concern at the embarrassment that the situation would have brought to the office of the president. The newspaper report said: “Despite the arbitrariness of the procurement process, the BPP said it could not stop Mr Amaechi since he had managed to gain Mr Buhari’s anticipatory approval. An anticipatory approval means the granting of a procurement request before the statutory consideration and endorsement of the Federal Executive Council…. Nevertheless, the BPP separately told Mr Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Prof. Gambari, and the Ministry of Trransport that “it is not correct” for the “exalted Office of His Excellency, Mr President, to be drawn into routine administrative approvals particularly contract-related matters that are open to litigation. This procedure should be strongly discouraged…”

It is shocking therefore that the same President, whose embarrassment the BPP was trying to prevent doesn’t even think anything of it. Unfortunately, this is not just about the President and Amaechi. The tragedy is that it also tells a lot on how seriously Nigerians and non-Nigerians can take the so-called corruption war of the president. If an official allegedly engages in blatant acts of impunity, which rub off on the country’s image and rob it of revenues in hundreds of millions and repeatedly away with it without even as much as a manifestable slap on the wrist, then something is wrong. It is pathetic that an example of the country’s sense of seriousness cannot be made with a man who drags the country and its leader into such situation.

Amaechi’s misuse of whatever privileges he might have with President gets even more flagrant with a newspaper report last week. On January 11, 2022, THISDAY published a story with the title: “Buhari Cancels Restoration of INTELS’ Pilotage Contract.”

In this front-page report, it was alleged that the President had ordered the reversal of his earlier instructions on the restoration of some contracts to INTELS. INTELS is a logistics services provider in the maritime and oil and gas sectors. It was reportedly co-founded by Gabriele Volpi, an Italian national, and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Vice-President. And it has continued to be in the news for the wrong reasons over the past couple of years