The commission that is responsible for driving desperately needed investments in Africa's largest economy is riddled with troubles as Ms Umar and the staff are at loggerheads.
It was rarely expected that President Muhammadu Buhari would reappoint a chief of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) who was once sacked over incompetence and ineptitude. But as the president announced that Saratu Umar would lead the commission again -- after she was sacked by former president Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 -- staff and directors exercised hope there would be a change.
In a statement, Mr Buhari praised Ms Umar's short period of service as the Executive Secretary, saying she transformed the NIPC into a world-class investment agency and minimised revenue leakages, saving N500 billion for the country. Ms Umar herself had pledged to be more committed to seeing the growth of the commission in her second coming.
"I reiterate that NIPC will be a strong public institution, with a private sector orientation that delivers effective and efficient services that exceed the expectations of all stakeholders in the investment ecosystem and indeed, in Nigeria," Ms Umar had pledged upon her resumption of duty.
But has Ms Umar delivered on her promises in her second coming?
The commission that is responsible for driving desperately needed investments in Africa's largest economy is now riddled with troubles as Ms Umar and the staff are at loggerheads on account of the boss's management and competence crisis.
Senior staff and directors of the commission, in separate interviews with PREMIUM TIMES, said the competence deficit in leadership is making NIPC depleted in strength and performance and ridiculing the existence of the federal parastatal. All the staff sources begged this newspaper for anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the press on the matter.
The Odour of Incompetence at NIPC
The last time investment announcements were made on the NIPC website was in April 2022, before the second coming of Ms Umar as the commission's Executive Secretary. The Department of Strategic Service of the commission had named BUA Cement of Nigeria, Tingo of the United States of America, Soft Bank Vission Fund of the United Kingdom and Speedinvest of Austria as some of the investors for the first quarter of 2022.
However, there has been no investment announcement since Ms Umar resumed office last July, suggesting that the commission needs to improve in its primary reason for existence. NIPC was established to promote investments within and outside Nigeria that would favour the country.
In a 6 March petition signed by some NIPC directors, including Gana Wakil, John Oseji and James Akwada, among others, Ms Umar's matter was brought to the fore of the trade and investment ministry. The aggrieved directors insinuated that Ms Umar's ineptitude is bringing the commission down by instalments. They pointed fingers at her on a plethora of issues, including threats to life and physical body harm against the directors and other staff of the agency.
They cited institutional problems facing the crumbling government agency such as delays in treating correspondences; not honouring the invitations for NIPC's national assignments; not attending or approving participation in sponsored important international events; not implementing the Country-Specific Investment Strategy considered and approved in 2018 and so on.
"We therefore kindly appeal for your urgent intervention in these matters that have left NIPC lying prostrate and led to the complete incapacitation of the commission to perform its statutory functions," the petitioners wrote.
The directors said they sought immediate interventions from the ministry of trade and investment because they had on several occasions drawn the attention of the minister to the matter but no significant step had been taken.
Pioneer Status Stalled by Poor Leadership
Since her re-emergence, Ms Umar was said to have turned a deaf ear towards considering pioneer status applications at NIPC. She barely held important management meetings, nor sat down with directors of the commission to determine the reviews of applications and memos in that regard.
Tax incentives or pioneer status are exemptions granted by the federal government to qualified and important investment projects from companies deriving profits in Nigeria or brought into the country, according to Resolution Law Firm. The importance of the pioneer status incentives is to attract foreign direct investments to enhance the growth and development of Nigeria.
But then, as prominent NIPC staff told PREMIUM TIMES, Ms Umar ignores these benefits at the expense of the development of the commission, failing to be forthcoming on issues of the tax incentives. A number of pioneer applicants, the insiders said, have repeatedly visited the NIPC to raise concerns over their pending applications.
Upon her resumption as the commission's chief in July 2022, the pioneer status approvals for companies were stalled largely because Ms Umar has not held a management meeting more than once, insiders said.
A staff of the commission with sufficient knowledge of the ongoings about the pioneer status said Ms Umar's lack of commitment to approve these applications has caused a setback for the tax incentive scheme. Another source within the NIPC pioneer status division corroborated this claim, noting that companies such as Eco-Vixer Industry Private Limited, Ocean and Carvel Terminal Service Limited, and John-Hood Hotel, among others, have on several occasions sought the approval of the pioneer status but failed -- after going through a rigorous application process.
'Smite the Shepperd and the Sheep Will Scatter'
On 28 November 2022, a number of directors at NIPC mailed a petition, titled "A Cry for Help and Urgent Action", to the office of the Minister for Trade and Investment, asking him, as the superior to the commission's chief, to intervene in the management crises and leadership deformity of the government parastatal.
In our previous report on this issue, PREMIUM TIMES showed how Ms Umar was actively engaging in a divide-and-rule leadership, turning the NIPC space into a toxic workplace. She had been accused of creating disaffection among the directors of the commission by assigning a senior role to junior staff and vice versa.
"She went ahead to query the director who dared to say he will not act to oversee his seniors," the directors said in the petition. "She is also in the habit of assigning duties of departments to other departments to create disaffection."
Again, she was accused of making unilateral decisions and refusing to work with other directors, noting how she would rather seek counsel from retired personnel of the commission than work with the existing directors.
"She also forces staff of specific units to report to them and berates them for not subjecting themselves to tasking by these outsiders," the petition read in parts.
Earlier in February, Ms Umar's loyalists were said to be seen moving from door to door to seek allegiance for her after she came under heavy criticism by the public over her poor performance in the commission. Sources said staff are being cajoled to pledge loyalty to Ms Umar against their will, a development some of them described as "tyrannical".
"For the whole of today, 2 Deputy Directors, her cronies, have been going from office to office trying to compel staff to sign a document that pledges allegiance to the ES and stating that they are not in support of the petitions," an insider, who witnessed the event, told PREMIUM TIMES. "While a few have been cajoled into signing, some others have stood their ground and refused. The staff who refused are being threatened; they've also mandated signatures to be gotten from the Zonal offices."
In the closing paragraph of the seventh item on the 28 November petition, the aggrieved directors begged the minister for a rapid intervention lest Mr Umar got them all fired. They had written a separate petition on the illegal disengagement of some NIPC directors, who appear to be of higher cadre, and they feared they might be the next.
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"Mr Minister, sir, this will definitely lead to the mother-of-all-unrests in NIPC!," the petition stated. "We know that after sacking our (senior) directors, she will come for us. Smite the shepherd and the sheep will scatter."
Why Saratu in the First Place?
A number of NIPC staff PREMIUM TIMES interrogated still wonder why Mr Buhari had to reinstall Ms Umar, once sacked over incompetence and underperformance by former president Jonathan. They believe the Executive Secretary was on a "mission of vengeance" against them, urging the president to review her reappointment in the commission.
The NIPC workers lamented, in separate interviews, that the reappointment of Ms Umar as the chief of the commission was engineered by her benefactor in the presidential villa, whom they described as a powerful politician from Kwara State.
Since her re-emergence last year, numerous petitions from NIPC staff have been sent to Niyi Adebayo, the trade and investment minister, appealing to him to address leadership excesses exhibited by Ms Umar. The petitions have been received and reviewed by Mr Adebayo's ministry but actions are reluctantly taken.
Sources at NIPC and the trade and investment ministry said the minister is clearly irritated by the complaints over Ms Umar's maladministration tendencies but he has been cowed by powers that be in the presidency.
Neither Femi Adesina, Mr Buhari's spokesman, nor Niyi Adebayo of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, was available for interviews over the reappointment of Ms Umar and the controversies trailing it. They also did not respond to calls and messages placed on the lines. Ms Umar as well ignored our request to hear her own side of the story. She failed to respond to our calls and messages on the matter.
