That dirty Twitter fight

The Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Mrs Kafayat Oluwatoyin Dabiri-Erewa, in a video released on May 23, 2020 narrated how ‘gunmen’ chased staff of the commission from its office located at Mbora district in Abuja on the alleged order of Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Pantami.
The video was published by NiDCOM on its Twitter at about 2:16 pm of that day. It later went vira
In the video, she highlighted the challenges of NiDCOM since it was established one year ago.
Dabiri-Erewa, formerly, the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora in 2015 was given a new role of Chairman/CEO of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission in November 2018 but the Senate did not confirm the appointment until May 2019.
According to her, when her appointment was confirmed, she had no office to operate from and had to practically beg her friends before she got a space from Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) to manage.
Specifically, NCC Management allocated its Fifth Floor to NiDCOM in June 2019 for use temporarily.
NCC is an agency under the control of Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Pantami.
But since February 11, 2020 after NIDCOM was chased out of its temporary office inside the NCC House by gunmen on the alleged order of Dr Pantami, Dabiri-Erewa said her commission no longer had a space to work from.
In the video posted on the website of NIDCOM and tweeted by Dabiri-Erewa, she said, “In one year, we don’t have an office. The office we got was given to us by NCC but we were actually driven away by the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Mr Isa Pantami, within two days, they drove us out with guns and what happened?”
She said NiDCOM was actually given one week quit notice via SMS on February 9, 2020 but was ejected on February 11 while she was on official assignment with President Muhammadu Buhari in Ethiopia.
The armed men that ejected the NiDCOM staff allegedly broke into its office and carted away all they had before sealing off the office.
Dabiri-Erewa said she had taken the matter up and wrote appropriate authorities including the Department of State Service (DSS), the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and Mr Abba Kyari, the late Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari for intervention.
She was still waiting for intervention when COVID-19 hit Nigeria while the Chief of Staff also died.
When no intervention came, the NiDCOM chair wrote a letter to Minister Pantami on May 15, 2020, to appeal for the release of their office equipment which had been in the custody of the NCC since February but no reply came from the minister.
The frustration occasioned by silence from the appropriate authorities and Minister Pantami led to the release of the video of May 23 which narrated how the staff of NIDCOM were thrown out of their temporary office.
Less than 24 hours after the video went viral, the minister also went to the Twitter on Sunday, May 24, to reply Abike Dabiri-Erewa.
Dr Pantami specifically said that the chairman of NiDCOM published a ‘fat lie’ against him, denying that he ever used any gunmen to eject the commission, adding that the NCC itself had cleared the air in its statement on what actually transpired between NiDCOM and the NCC.
Pronto, Dabiri Erewa also replied the minister via Twitter that she had expected an Islamic scholar of Dr Pantami’s stature to say the truth instead of denying the obvious.
She added that the minister, by his action, disrespected her because she is a woman and that it was obvious that he has legendary disrespect for women.
The minister had since deleted the tweet.
However, the Office of Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) issued a statement to clear the air on the matter.
The NCC said it was true that it offered NiDCOM an office space on the Fifth Floor of the NCC building at Mbora, Abuja designated as NCC Annex and that the offer has not been withdrawn.
It however explained that it indeed evacuated NiDCOM from the Mbora facility owing to preparation for the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari who was scheduled to inaugurate the Communications and Digital Economy Complex and launch of other projects.
“As is usual in ensuring security and accountability before, during and after presidential visits, the building had to be cleared to allow for only known and identifiable persons to have access within the Complex,” NCC said..
It added that in any event, after the offer of the office space to the Diaspora Commission, the Director-General, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa had not visited the Complex to take possession of any of the offices and also the Commission had not started using any of the spaces like office.
But in response to NCC, NiDCOM restated that it was forcefully evicted from the annex and that the allegation that it did not move into the office when allocated was untrue and contradictory to the statement of NCC itself which admitted that NIDCOM property were warehoused and intact in the annex.
The dirty exchanges between the two principal officers of the Presidency on Twitter, a global networking service are, to say the least, disgraceful and embarrassing not only to the Presidency but also to all Nigerians.
It is also scandalous that a commission like NiDCOM with staff drawing salary from the nation’s coffer has been operating in the last one year without an office.
One wonders the quality of job that will be done by the staff of that office who are said to sit on bare floor and use their private computers to do official jobs.
It is more worrying that since this matter was reported to the appropriate authorities in February, nothing has been done to resolve the dispute until the nation’s dirty linen was washed in the public.
We therefore urge the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha eww Chief of Staff, to urgently intervene and nip the on-going festering embarrassment without further delay.