NPA: Embattled MD, Hadiza-Bala fights back, threatens to sue those lying against her

The embattled Managing Director of Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala-Usman has threatened to sue “false” online postings against her.

The suspended female Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority was suspended for alledged unremitted billions of naira generated by the agency into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, an allegation that she is being investigated.

But over the weekend, she complained that there has been “false and rehashed reports geared at maligning my personality and casting aspersions on my reputation and service to the nation.”

In a statement released over the weekend, Bala-Usman said she needed to keep her integrity, she wouldn’t be involved in rebuttals.

She pointed out reports flying all over the places that she was indicted for unapproved N831million spent on hotels in 2016, 2017, saying, the report was a continuation of the “relentless war” being fought against her personality for reasons best known to them.

“The fact is that the NPA has its audited financial statements for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018. These statements have the authentic figures of the Authority’s expenditure over those years,” she said, maintaining that snapshots of “unauthenticated” documents being circulated were being used to fit the “already concocted and devious narratives that they love to sell to the public”.

She also denied erecting a structure in Zaria while serving as NPA MD, and challenged her accusers to present any evidence linking her to the structure.

“The story is total falsehood,” she said, further describing it as “pathetic”.

“I have chosen to maintain a calm mien to this consistent falsehood, conscious of the demand of accountability, which national service places on me,” she said.

“However, there is always a limit to which one can endure this needless perpetuation of falsehood.”