On Thursday, 29 May, Alhaji Abdul Samad Rabiu, chairman of the BUA Group, wrote an article riddled with falsehood by accusing an unnamed former Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) of acting against the interest of his business organisation.
In the said article entitled, “Two years of President Tinubu: A business perspective,” he wrote: “We no longer worry about arbitrary shutdowns or politically motivated disruptions. Let me give a real example. We started a new business in Port Harcourt four or five years ago under BUA Foods, operating at the Rivers Ports under a concession with the Nigerian Ports Authority. It was going very well. One day, we woke up to a letter stating that the concession had been revoked, the terminal shut down, and the lease agreement terminated. There was no warning, no issue, no conflict.
“Later, we discovered that the Managing Director of NPA at the time decided to close the business simply because our operations were competing with those of her friend. She wanted to impress her friend. That was the only reason…”
Although the article otherwise stated factual and commendable efforts of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration to stabilise the business climate in Nigeria, his narration of the dispute between the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the BUA Group are, to say the least, shameful.
He claimed in his article that “we woke up to a letter stating that the concession had been revoked. There was no prior warning, no issue, no conflict….” This is a blatant lie. It is not just that the BUA Group received numerous notifications and warnings about its negligence of contractual responsibilities; some of these warnings preceded my tenure as managing director.
The facts of the matter are as follows:
BUA Ports and Terminal Limited became concessionaires of Rivers Port Terminal B for a 20-year tenure through a concession agreement contract dated 11 May, 2006. The Terminal was handed over to them for use with effect from 10 August, 2006.
As part of the terms of agreement for the concession, BUA Ports and Terminal Limited was required to commence full reconstruction of Berths 5-8 within 90 days of the handover of the facility.
Ten years after taking possession of the terminal and operating it, BUA had not commenced the rehabilitation of the quays that it was required to commence in 90 days.
A notice of default was issued to the company on 11 February 2016, which was before my appointment as MD of the Nigerian Ports Authority.
The letter with the subject: ‘Non-compliance with the reconstruction of Berths 5-8 in line with your terminal development plan as contained in your lease agreement’, read in part: “We refer to the above subject matter and our earlier letters dated 19th May 2014 and 3rd February 2016. We observed that you had deliberately/and or refused to commence improvement on the reconstruction of Berths 5-8 in line with the laid down procedure in the approved development plan as contained in Appendix D of the executed agreement…” Despite receiving the letter, dated 11 February 2016, from NPA, the company refused to honour this fundamental and material term of the lease agreement, which compromised the integrity of the other adjoining berths in the ports.
On 17 August 2016, the NPA, under my leadership, issued another notice of default drawing the attention of BUA to the failure to fulfil its obligations. Still, BUA did not commence the rehabilitation in line with the contractual obligation.
Then, three months later, on 11 November 2016, the NPA issued them a three-month termination notice referring to the several default notices served on BUA in relation to the non-fulfilment of the obligations under the lease agreement.
On receipt of the notice of termination, BUA Ports and Terminal sought and obtained a restraining order from the Federal High Court, Lagos, on 18 January 2018, barring the Authority from giving effect to the termination.
In compliance with the restraining order of the Federal High Court, the NPA thereafter allowed BUA Ports and Terminal Limited full access to the premises for peaceful operation, without any interference whatsoever.
It is pertinent to note that the process for the default notices issued to BUA commenced in February 2016, before my appointment as managing director.
However, I proceeded to implement the recommendations to safeguard the sanctity of the agreement and protect the Federal Government of Nigeria from a defaulting concessionaire seeking to take advantage of the government by using its facilities without making the due investment enshrined in the development plan of the concession agreement.
While flaunting his access to former President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Rabiu refused to disclose that he abused this access to misinform the former president into reversing NPA’s decision, thereby issuing a directive that contradicted the existing contract and negating the country’s interests.
It is, therefore, curious that the chairman of BUA Group has continued to push this false narrative aimed at distracting Nigerians from seeing his company’s flagrant disregard of the binding contractual agreement.
The company and its chairman should refrain from cheap blackmail and commit to making the company a responsible corporate body that will make the country proud.
- Hadiza Bala Usman is the Special Adviser on Policy and Coordination to the President of Nigeria.
