This is coming as the organised labour yesterday took to the streets of Abuja to protest what they described as “unwarranted attack” on workers who were on a peaceful protest at Ngige’s Asokoro residence over the delay in inaugurating the board of NSITF.
Speaking during the inauguration, the minister who described the process leading to the inauguration as long and tortuous, disclosed that before the composition of the board membership, extensive investigations were conducted into financial crimes and administrative flaws perpetrated by the former board members.
According to him, the output of the investigation was a useful guide for the composition of a new and promising board with the capacity to efficiently discharge its functions.
“The route to this event of today has been long and tortuous due to conditions precedent that needed to be addressed and resolved to ensure a viable and progressive NSITF for today and the future.
“Extensive investigations, both for financial crimes and administrative breaches had to be carried out in the NSITF with outcomes in the form of reports and recommendations that have provided guides for the formation of a new and better NSITF where a new board can thrive and efficiently discharge its statutory functions,” the minister said.
The conflict over the composition of the board dated back to 2017 when the then Acting President Yemi Osinbajo appointed a former labour activist, Frank Kokori, as the chairman of the board.
But Ngige rejected the appointment, saying it was not in compliance with Section 4(a) of the NSITF Act, which he said prohibited the appointment of any person with interest in labour matters to chair the board.
Consequently, he recommended Enejamo-Isire to the president to replace Kokori, and the recommendation was promptly approved by the president last year.
But since then, Kokori and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) have been at loggerheads with Ngige over the vehement refusal of the minister to swear in Kokori who was the former Chairman of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) as the chairman of the board of NSITF.
The conflict climaxed last week when the NLC president, Ayuba Wabba, led protesters to picket the private residence of Ngige with two tankers deployed to block the entrance of his house.
However, at the inauguration yesterday, Ngige recalled the degree of various corrupt practices perpetrated by the immediate past members of the board of the agency led by Mrs. Ngozi Olojeme, in alleged connivance with the management of the agency, which he said resulted in the looting of a whole lot of N48 billion out of the total N62 billion contributions made to the agency between 2012 and 2015.
According to him, consequently, the board chairman and other members had been charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), leading to the recovery of some of the looted funds and the seizure of no fewer than 37 houses.
Ngige then proceeded to warn members of the board to operate within the limits of their powers, noting for instance, that the board lacks the capacity to award contracts.
According to him, there is a rather Parastatal Tender Board saddled with the responsibility of awarding contracts in accordance with the Public Procurement Act of 2007.
He also told the new board members that investment of NSITF must be “streamlined and compartmentalised in line with due process.”
Ngige also tasked the Fund to “with urgency retrieve all abandoned building assets in the real estate sector that are attested to all over the country at Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu etc with whereabouts of some of the title documents not known.”
In his remark at the occasion, the board chairman promised to bring his huge experience from the private sector to bear on the board, promising that the board would come up with policies and programmes that aimed at complementing the vision of the federal government.
He also said members of the board would make sterling contributions that would justify the confidence reposed in them by the president who appointed them, adding that the fortune of NSITF would be boosted this time in a deliberate effort to increasing the overall goal of the agency.
But contrary to expectation that the inauguration of Austin Enejamo-Isire, a chartered accountant and banker, would lay to rest the prolonged battle of wits between Ngige and NLC, it only aggravated it as labour yesterday embarked on protests nationwide to press for the inauguration of Kokori.
On Sunday, President Muhammadu Buhari redeployed Kokori to head the board of Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS). But the appointment did not go down well with labour.
Other members of the NSITF board inaugurated by Ngige yesterday were: Adebayo Somefun, NSITF Managing Director; Tijani Suleiman Darazo, Executive Director, Administration; Titilola Olukemi, NSITF Executive Director, Operations and Mrs. Ijeoma Oji Okoronkwo, NSITF Deputy General Manager and Board Secretary.
Others were Timothy Osuolale Olawale, Director-General of Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA); Mohammed Yinusa, NECA President,; Waheed Adeyanju, NLC and President, Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN); Ibrahim Khaleel, NLC/National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE); Ifeoma Anyawutaku; Mrs. Umma Aminu Dutse and Jasper Azutalam.
