As NBET’s Management Crisis Gets Messier

A management crisis that started at the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc in early 2017, has assumed a worrisome dimension reports Chineme Okafor

According to documents obtained by THISDAY and also sources privy to the internal politics of the agency, the management crisis perhaps started with the appointment of Amobi in 2016 by President Muhammadu Buhari. Amobi was appointed after the tenure of NBET’s former head, Mr. Rumundaka Wonodi, was abruptly cut short. But before Amobi was appointed, Bintube, had served in an interim capacity for few months

Recent investigations by THISDAY on the internal activities of the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET), better known as Bulk Trader, have uncovered a couple of developments that have continued to rock its operational harmony. The series of ugly events, which perhaps, started in 2016, have seen top officials at the NBET continue to go at each other over sustained battle for supremacy.

The crisis, which is reportedly between the Managing Director of NBET, Dr. Marilyn Amobi; and two other top officials of the agency – Mr. Waziri Bintube, who headed the finance department of NBET until a recent restructuring; and Mr. Abdullahi Sambo, also head of NBET’s audit department before he was moved to another department, could render the NBET rudderless and Nigeria’s electricity market worst for it.

Genesis of crisis According to documents obtained by THISDAY and also sources privy to the internal politics of the agency, the management crisis perhaps started with the appointment of Amobi in 2016 by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Amobi was appointed after the tenure of NBET’s former head, Mr. Rumundaka Wonodi, was abruptly cut short.

But before Amobi was appointed, Bintube, had served in an interim capacity for few months.

Bintube’s appointment was, however, not confirmed by the federal government, and this allegedly did not go down well with him, hence, his alleged opposition to Amobi’s appointment.

Furthermore, THISDAY gathered that three letters of complaints were written by Amobi in 2016 over alleged physical assault on her on November 9, 2016 by one of the general managers, in the presence of the staff of the agency.

It was said that the letters are strong indications that the operational situation in NBET is uneasy.

According to sources, the three protest letters to the power ministry have not received any form of response.

When THISDAY called the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr. Louis Edozien for clarification of this, he declined to comment.

Crisis gets messier The crisis, in June 2017 reached a new height when a restructuring exercise was done at the NBET, and Bintube was moved from his position as chief financial officer, alongside Sambo, who was the auditor.

This, according to documents seen by THISDAY, did not go down well with the two officers who reportedly petitioned two religious groups alleging a conspiracy against them by Amobi on the basis of their religious faith.

This was after they were suspended by Amobi for allegedly staying off work for up to six months and then their salaries and emoluments stopped.

Officials of the NBET who are privy to the development, however, told the paper that the issues relating to Bintube and Sambo bothered on basic organisational indiscipline and disrespect for rules governing the actions of government officials.

They explained that both officials left their duty posts when the office of the Accountant General of the Federation seconded two of its officials to the NBET to help it attain a self-accounting status.

That exercise, they noted required some management reshuffling and Bintube and Sambo were thus moved to head new departments. This, they alleged did not go down well with them and they subsequently left their duty posts for up to six months in disregard of both the government and NBET’s rules of engagement.

Accordingly, both officials rejected their appointments and reportedly petitioned a non-existent board of the NBET, claiming that Amobi had no right to redeploy them to new departments.

It was further learnt that between June and December 2017 when this happened, Sambo reportedly claimed a six-month salary worth N11.276 million and N1.355 million car maintenance expenses without reporting to work.

Amobi, in December stopped his salaries until when the non-existent board determined his petition.

Similarly, Bintube was reported to have been paid a six-month salary worth N16.488 million, as well as car maintenance allowance of N626, 123, even though he didn’t report to work as well.

Ethno-religious slant THISDAY also gathered that a religious slant has now been introduced into the internal battle for supremacy at the NBET.

Investigation revealed that based on Bintube and Sambo’s protests against the NBET, two Muslim groups – the Muslim Media Watch Group and Abuja Muslim Forum have petitioned the NBET, accusing Amobi of injustice and religious victimisation of Bintube and Sambo at the NBET.

The groups accused the NBET under Amobi, of religious intolerance and unconstitutionally depriving both officials of their salaries and emoluments, which they said had been in arrears.

In their petitions, they claimed Amobi had continued to exhibit acts of executive lawlessness, despite interventions from the power ministry in the management struggles between her and the duo.

The petitions were signed by Nasir Balogun who is the national secretary of the Muslim Media Watch Group, while L. J Ahmad, president of the Abuja Muslim Forum signed for the group.

According to the petitioners, Amobi had unjustly moved both officials from their positions and subsequently suspended them from the NBET for their failures to report to the new posts.

They said her acts were motivated by the religion and ethnicity of the two officials.

Going further, the Abuja Muslim Forum, which specifically stated that it represented the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) amongst other Islamic organisations, explained that Amobi’s alleged actions were affronts to them and Islam.

They demanded that she should restore Bintube and Sambo to their former positions unconditionally.

To prevent a potential religious fracas or crisis at the NBET, Amobi, it was learnt, is believed to have called the attention of the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar and Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, in their capacities as president and vice president of the NSCIA.

Again, to clarify the position of the ministry on the development, THISDAY called Edozien, for comments, and been that NBET is one of the agencies under his ministry, but he also declined to comment.

Edozien referred THISDAY to the media unit of the ministry, saying that the unit and its personnel should be able to handle the request.

Considering the likely impact the leadership crisis at the NBET could have on the country’s power market, industry operators who spoke to THSDAY on the situation, though anonymously, called for a cautious and immediate resolution of the crisis.

They explained that being perhaps the only government entity with some semblance of business transparency in the country’s power sector, such crisis of confidence could derail its focus on its mandate in the sector, as well as disrupt stakeholders’ business interactions with its.

They also called on the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to step in to restore operational harmony at the NBET, adding that as its licensee, the internal rumblings at the NBET should not have been allowed to linger for so long.