By Awaal Gata
Abuja
Finance Attachés in some Nigerian Missions abroad have alleged injustice and selectivity in the posting and recall made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2015, an exclusive investigation by Blueprint has revealed.
Our findings revealed that the ministry as a matter of tradition, posts support staff to Nigerian Embassies and High Commissions for a term of three years each, after which they are recalled and new ones posted in their place.
However, there is an alleged breach of this procedure as some staff posted out in 2012 have been recalled.
The FAs, otherwise known as accounting officers, numbering 14 were allegedly recalled to the headquarters out of a batch of 30 posted out in 2012, fuelling allegation of selectivity, injustice and unfair treatment.
They were said to have been recalled last December, shortly before the end of their tenure on very short notice.
One of the recalled attachés who spoke to Blueprint under anonymity, claimed that they were recalled before the end of their three-year term, even as some of them had barely spent two years.
According to him, some of their colleagues who were posted same time were left out of the recall and allowed to remain at their posts to complete their term.
There are also claims that some of the attachés who were not recalled, allegedly paid their way through to ‘subvert the process’.
Another affected attaché who also craved for anonymity, said ordering them back to Nigeria on a short notice was a difficult problem for them and their families as some of them had paid thousands of dollars for their children’s school fees in their countries of domicile, where sessions mostly end in June.
“Removing our kids from school now will cause a serious loss of money and psychological trauma for our kids,” he lamented.
Similarly, in a protest letter obtained by our correspondent, addressed to the Permanent Secretary in the ministry and copied the Private Principal Secretary to the President, the attachés noted that out of the 30 of them posted in the 2012 batch, 16 were not recalled.
The letter obtained from a presidency source and dated December 23, 2015 reads: “We respectfully wish to bring to Your Excellency’s notice the recently released 2015 posting and to request for a compassionate reconsideration of our recall to headquarters up until June 2016 when the school term of our children would be ending.
“Your Excellency may wish to note that we reported to our different posts beginning from January 2013 as part of the 2012 posting exercise.
We were surprised to note that some of us were listed among the 2011 Batch of Finance Attachés that are due for recall back to headquarters in which we were not notified prior to end of our tour in various post of duties as the practice in preparedness to recalling of officers
“It will surprise Your Excellency to note that several of the 2012 batch posted account officers of (30) thirty , serving at various Missions as Finance Attachés, 16 Missions, have been left back at their various Missions as follows: Algeria, Iran, Sweden, Guinea Equatorial, Belgrade, Canada, New York consulate General, Geneva, The Hague, South Korea, Zambia, Hong Kong, São Tomé, and Greece all posted in 2012 along with only few of us, were recalled from the numbers mentioned above while two of the Missions had spent over four years like Beirut and Pretoria posted in 2011.
“This we would assume rather suggests selective recall which smacks of injustice, and unfairness and thus effectively put us at a great disadvantage when placed side by side with our colleagues.
“We therefore wish to appeal to Your Excellency for fairness and justice to prevail in our case.” All efforts to speak to the Ministry’s spokesperson yesterday proved abortive as he was said to have been posted out on a foreign mission and a new one had not been appointed.
When contacted, the Acting Director, Postings, Usman Ogah, promised getting back to our correspondent “before the end of the day” after he must have cleared with his superiors.
But when the reaction never came, a call was put through to his line and this remained unanswered.
However, a top ministry source said: “To the best of my knowledge, no official who has not completed the mandatory three years is recalled without having disciplinary issues.”
The source however would not confirm or deny whether the affected officials had any disciplinary issue at their duty post.