By Our Reporter
In what observers have interpreted as a show of confidence in the suspended Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Ms Hadiza Bala, the governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir Elrufai, has welcomed her to Kaduna State with pomp.
The governor gave this indication in a picture he posted on his facebook page, This picture obviously taken at a public event had himself and Bala in it. The posting of this picture followed the recent suspension of the NPA boss by the FG.
It would be recalled that Bala was suspended as the NPA boss to, according to the FG, pave way for an investigation with regard to the award of a contract. The allegation made was that she single-handedly awarded the contract without following due process, an allegation she has strongly denied in a press release signed by her. In it she gave her own detailed explanation of the circumstances surrounding the said contract, insisting that the allegation had no basis at all.
Bala was once the Chief of Staff to Governor El-Rufai before she was called up for national assignment at the inception of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
In the picture referred to, Governor El-Rufai is seen smiling broadly in his usual relaxed manner, a hint that he was confident that his former Chief of Staff would be vindicated at the end the ongoing investigation by the FG.
This picture has been read by observers as a sign of the governor’s conviction that Bala, with whom he had worked over several years before he became the governor of Kaduna, was innocent of the accusations leveled against her.
It is equally speculated in some quarters that El-Rufai’s faith in the enterprising, principled, and jovial Bala may be a hint he realized that those who made the allegation against her might be engaged in witch-hunting, attempting to push out a public servant who would never compromise where corruption is concerned.
El-Rufai, himself a former Minister of the FCT, had been subjected to such witch-hunt by some people in powerful positions that he did not allow to do business as usual at the time he presided over the FCTA. He was subjected to an investigation by some lawmakers who, it later became clear, were keen to take possession of some landed properties in the FCT.
