In March, the Ministry of Trade and Investment wrote Mr Buhari to recommend the dismissal of Ms Umar on account of gross incompetence, ineptitude and poor management of the federal parastatal.
On Thursday evening, President Muhammadu Buhari sacked Saratu Umar as the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC).
Without stating the reasons for her dismissal, Femi Adesina, Mr Buhari's spokesperson, announced that the most senior director should take over the leadership of the commission in the interim.
The dismissal of the chief in such an important government agency towards the end of Mr Buhari's administration was a surprise to many.
But history is only repeating itself on the dismissed NIPC chief. In 2015, a few months before the end of former President Goodluck Jonathan's tenure, Ms Umar was sacked for displaying gross incompetence and ineptitude in public service. In 2022, Mr Buhari reappointed her, following the recommendation of some power brokers in the presidency.
But in less than one year of her second coming, Ms Umar exhibited the same traits of malfeasance that led to her sack under Jonathan. Again, after receiving dozens of petitions, Mr Buhari had to sack her for the same reasons of competence crisis, poor management of the commission and corruption allegations around her neck.
As a public servant at the Nigerian Export-Import Bank, she had been compulsorily asked to retire from the service on the infamous grounds of poor performance and lack of management competence. Yet she was made to head NIPC, only to be sacked by two different, consecutive administrations.
Since January, PREMIUM TIMES has tracked and reported several petitions by staff and directors against the NIPC boss. The circumstances that led to the eventual sack of the woman who was asked to lead one of Nigeria's most important agencies corroborated allegations of power play, high-handedness, toxic tendencies and weak leadership prowess.
Disregarding a superior authority
In March 2022, an inter-ministerial committee, led by Evelyn Ngige, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Trade and Investment, invited Ms Umar to defend several allegations against her but she refused to appear before the panel. Before then, the panel had invited and interrogated directors and senior workers at NIPC, who were said to have been victimised by the Executive Secretary. They all testified against her before the committee.
"The panel also invited senior and mid-level staff loyal to the ES (Ms Umar) to appear on 21 March 2023 and NONE of them appeared before the committee despite receiving the invites," a director at NIPC, who declined to be described by name over the fear of victimisation, told PREMIUM TIMES. "We understand that the ES asked them not to honour the invitation in defiance of the Minister's directive."
Other sources, who corroborated the director, said Ms Umar had demonstrated shocking disregard for the superior Ministry of Trade and Investment. Since her re-emergence, the sources said, she had defied accountability to the minister, claiming to be reporting only to the president, an act considered to be clear insubordination.
The 14-man committee consists of at least four directors from the trade and investment ministry, as well as other directors from the offices of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Ministry of Labour and Employment, among others.
The inter-ministerial panel probed alleged inefficiency by Ms Umar, after reviewing a number of petitions by staff and directors of the commission.
In our previous reporting, PREMIUM TIMES detailed how aggrieved staff of NIPC spotlighted Ms Umar's malfeasances, including stalling the approval of pioneer status incentives and refusing to work with other directors thereby leaving the commission prostrate.
"The Committee has an even broader composition than the one that indicted Saratu Umar in 2015. The 2015 Committee was an in-house Committee of the Ministry of Trade and Investment, chaired by the permanent secretary while this 2023 Committee was a high-level inter-ministerial Committee," another NIPC staff said.
Over N50 million extra-budgetary expenditure
In another development, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) was probing Ms Umar for extra-budgetary expenditures of over N50 million.
Insiders said the ICPC investigation is around several cases of financial impropriety, including laundering millions through two staff by paying them N5 million each in violation of all extant rules; paying unknown external auditor millions of naira and paying N300,000 monthly to a Police Station in Bauchi for "reasons unknown".
"ICPC has now invited 8 staff for interrogation on these financial issues. Will get a copy of the invite and send," one such insider said.
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When contacted, Ms Umar failed to respond to calls and messages asking for her reactions by PREMIUM TIMES. She had ignored similar inquiries in our previous reporting.
Minister writes Buhari, recommends dismissal of NIPC chief
In March, the Ministry of Trade and Investment wrote Mr Buhari to recommend the dismissal of Ms Umar on account of gross incompetence, ineptitude and poor management of the federal parastatal.
In his recommendation letter, the minister told Mr Buhari that Ms Umar has shown gross incapacity to "serve as chief of NIPC for not attending to both foreign and local investors; stalling pioneer status incentive applications and refusing to participate in the negotiation of bilateral investment treaties between Nigeria and other countries," sources said.
Among other reasons, the minister referred to the administrative atrocities committed by the woman in the office, including the indiscriminate sack of directors, making unilateral decisions, neglecting critical official duties, creating disaffection among staff and tuning the government agency into a toxic workplace.
Mr Buhari only worked on the recommendation of the minister when he announced the termination of the appointment of Ms Umar as NIPC boss.
