Temitayo JoshuaTo say that Hadiza Bala-Usman, Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, in her few years in office, has continued to court controversy to no end is certainly stating the obvious.Hadiza was at the sprawling legislative chamber to attend an investigative hearing, where she alleged that she was physically attacked by hoodlums. Shockingly, no such report made the pages of any Nigerian newspaper, all of who have correspondents in the National Assembly.Hadiza said that she was only saved a bigger assault by her security agents who took her into Senator Danjuma Gojes office where she waited for the hoodlums to leave.She stated that it took the intervention of her security agents and others around to prevent her from being assaulted. She, therefore, expressed concern that she could be openly attacked by suspected hoodlums within the precincts of the National Assembly. At the risk of being accused of holding the fort for the National Assembly leadership which security architecture has been accused of not being watertight enough for the visit of a preeminent personality like Hadiza, a few things are sacrosanct.The National Assembly is located within the Three Arms Zone; otherwise one of the most fortified places in the country. Entry to the complex is heavily restricted. Except you are a legislator, a worker with a proven identification card or a guest that had been pre-registered for a visit, you cannot enter the complex. One is, therefore, wondering who these phantom thugs are; who booked them in and who did they fill in the forms that they wanted to see' It is pretty easy to decipher all of these except the security officers there have been compromised as Hadiza has claimed.Now, in this age and time, when citizen journalism is at its most vibrant and profitable, and when everybody from a legislator to an ordinary artisan within a shouting distance of the complex has a smart phone; not forgetting the phalanx of media personnel there with their gizmos, it beggars understanding why since the day of the incident, no photo or video, whether blurry or grainy or otherwise, of the purported incident has been sighted anywhere.READ ALSO:N600b monthly loss: Reps urge NPA, others to fix Tin CanPray, did Captain Idahosa Wells Okunbo also bribe the hundreds of people, smart phones ever handy that would have seen Hadizas face-off with the thugs if it ever happened' Is Hadiza telling Nigerians that the Senate building particularly is so porous and lack adequate security for her to have been easily molested yet, nobody was arrested on the spot'Even if she was assaulted within the National Assembly, pray, would the thugs have escaped' Did they disappear into thin air' Even when the DSS, hooded and armed to the teeth, invaded the Assembly complex in 2018, Nigerians within the complex stood up to them and virtually held them hostage until normalcy returned. Pray, how can ordinary thugs escape from there' If any of the thugs were arrested, where are they being held' At what point did they confess to having been sent by the peace-loving businessman' While we would leave the National Assembly and the security agencies to explain themselves to Nigerians, it also bears reiterating some facts about the man involved.Captain Okunbo is a straightforward billionaire businessman and philanthropist who does not shy away from taking responsibility for his actions or inactions. He is a pacifist and respecter of the Rule of Law. Despite operating in the volatile maritime sector for the past three decades, where envy and competition are cut-throat, every issue that ever arose has ended up in the court. He has never been accused, until now, of such despicable and denigrating act of sending thugs after an adversary much more a woman. Well, Hadiza is no ordinary woman; she is the MD of the NPAYes, over the years, the OMSL, established to enhance the safeguarding of maritime-related commercial investments by offering expert advice and real-time solutions to security problems, has gone further by providing premier security solutions that help to promote a safe business environment not only in Nigeria but the entire West African coast.It is Nigerias leading asset protection company dedicated to protecting her natural resources from graft and illegal activities; and has a successful track record of securing strategic national infrastructure and stopping illegal bunkering, vandalism and oil theft.Joshua, a public affairs commentator, sent this piece from Lagos
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