Dear Asiwaju, our President-Elect, let me on behalf of myself and other progressive professionals, congratulate you and our great party once again on the outcome of the 2023 general elections. It is a well deserved victory for the progressive family and Nigerian home and abroad.
This open letter is prompted by my keen interest in the happenings with the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund and the unpleasant revelations since the unceremonious removal of Yeye Kemi Nelson from office as Executive Director.
Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund is the Premier social security institution in Nigeria with over 5,000 workforce. This government agency has the responsibility of providing social insurance and safety net for all Nigerian workers in public and private sectors of the economy. The Social Insurance is funded by Employers of labor’s contributions but ought to be managed by the tripod of Government, Employers, and Employees. However, under the Nigeria Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, successive Managers of the Fund have mismanaged the organisation with impunity by investing the funds into non-profitable ventures and white elephant projects. Over 60 Billion naira has been invested in the digitization of the organisation’s operations in the last 8years with next to nothing to show for it.
This wastages have negatively affected the core mandate of the organisation which is payment of compensations to injured/disabled/dead employees. It has also impacted negatively on the welfare of the agency’s workforce. An organisation that prides herself as being committed to employees’ welfare has shown great incompetence in management of her own 5,000 workforce who are grossly under-remunerated and demoralised by lack of career progression, as witnessed recently by the demotion of over 4,000 staff under the guise of Grade Level restructuring.
This unfriendly attitude of the Management towards her workforce has also affected the efficiency of staff in the implementation of the Employees’ Compensation act.
Since Ngige was appointed the Minister of Labour and Employment, he has removed successive MDs and senior management team owing to disagreement with him on heists. Notably among the removal from office is that of Barrister Bayo Somefun, whose team had our loved and reverred Yeye Kemi Nelson. The removal of which attracted the attention of National Assembly by inviting the Ngige but he went and all he could say was that he’s a VI BOY while Hon. James Faleke, “a MUSHIN BOY” dare questioned him about the removal. Ngige went on the assume political seniority
Somefun Led to the Jagaban. How more arrogant and disrespectful could an APC Minister be. It is also on record that Ngige went of Channels TV and publicly express disapproval for the candidacy of Asiwaju and Sen. Shettima. Ngige worked against our party, the APC in the just concluded general elections.
Dr. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment
Chris Ngige has also been said to be recruiting incessantly into the top Management cadre of the Fund in utter disregard to the newly approved staff condition of service. The recruitment does not follow any federal public service policy with total disregard to the principle of Federal Character. Most of those recruited into the top strategic Management positions are grossly unqualified and have shown incompetence in managing the affairs of the organisation. It is worthy of mention to state that the most recent last minute recruitment and E-NSITF heist was the cause of disagreement between the Honourable Minister and his erstwhile protégé, Dr. Michael Akabogu which led to the eventual sack of the former MD. This is an urgent call on the ICPC to carry out nominal roll audit in NSITF.
In recent times, the NSITF under Ngige has featured in the news chiefly for fraudulent reasons, the Minister can never satisfy his greed. After looting the organisation through contracts and fraudulent investments. He has now turned to defrauding the staff of the organisation through taxation. Dr. Ngige has turned himself to FIRS and JTB. He deducted inexplicable tax from the hard earned income of the staff of the organisation without evidence of remittance to appropriate tax authorities. The most recent scam of Dr. Ngige is to pad the wage bill of the organisation by 3.1B under the guise of upward salary review albeit what the staff of the organisation got is consolidation of their old remunerations and not any upward review, after the staff of the organisation were suffered for two months without salary.
As the inauguration day draws closer, I want to urge your Excellency, President-Elect to prioritise the reform and reorganisation of NSITF, firstly by appointing a very cerebral and truly progressive Hon. Minister of Labour. This is one of the things you can do for the sacrifice of Yeye Kemi Nelson not to go in vain.
We are praying for you and we wish you a very successful tenure as the President of the largest black nation on earth.
Yours progressively
AbdulMalik Usman
