Three Directors of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) have been recalled after being cleared by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The reinstated officers are Director of Finance and Account, Hakeem Akinbola; Director of Disaster Risk Reduction, Alhassan Nuhu and the Deputy Director Human Resource Management Mohammed Kanar.
Pointblanknews.com reports that Management and staff in the agency trooped out in welcoming the officers and commended the new NEMA boss and the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs for the kind gesture in the reinstatement.
It was gathered that the directors and some officers’ names were submitted to the anti-graft agency by NEMA’s former Director-General of the agency, Mustapha Maihaja for investigation and later suspended them from office in 2018.
The suspension was initially given for a period of 3 months, pending the investigation by EFCC, however, it was continuously extended by Maihaja.
At the time of the suspension, Maihaja was facing serious scrutiny and investigation by the National Assembly for incompetence, corruption and high handedness in the management of the Agency.
After the House of Representatives committee accused Maihaja of allegedly misusing the sum of N1.6 billion meant for the purchase of relief materials, and other monumental scandals widely reported in the media, President Muhammadu Buhari ‘unceremoniously’ sacked him and replaced him with Muhammadu Muhammed, a retired air vice-marshal in April 2020.
When AVM Mohammed was later nominated as the Chairman of the newly established National Senior Citizens Centre, President Buhari appointed Mustapha Habib Ahmed as the new NEMA Boss in May 2021.
It was further learnt that after the clearance by the anti-corruption agency, the management of NEMA obtained approval from its supervising Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development before issuing the directors letters of reinstatement.