The tenure of the Managing Director of the Nigeria Investment Authority (NSIA), Uchechi Orji has been extended unconstitutionally in flagrant contravention of the law.
According to Section 20(4) of the Nigeria Investment Authority (Establishment Act), the tenure of the agency’s managing director shall not exceed eight years in total.
That law only foresees a maximum of two tenure of four years each but Orji has been in charge since his appointment by the President Goodluck administration in 2012.
President Muhammadu Buhari had re-appointed him as managing director on October 12, 2017. Instead of in 2016 when his first tenure ought to have expired, according to the NSIA Act. It is difficult to say if this was an oversight or a deliberate violation of the law by the Buhari government.
Mr. Orji’s reappointment in 2017 for a five-year tenure contravenes the law establishing the NSIA, according to investigations.
Under the purview of the NSIA Act, the Managing Director could only be appointed for a four-year tenure. Renewable for another four years. If the law is followed, and should be, his two terms at the helm of NSIA should expire on October 12, 2020.
A source at the NSIA, who does not want his name in print, said the current MD continues to stay in office because he has the backing of the Cabal at the presidency.
The source says that it could be possible that the attention of President Buhari has not been drawn to the illegal elongation of the MDs tenure.
Efforts to get the response of the Presidency to this were fruitless as at the time of filing this report.
The NSIA is an agency of the Federation set up to manage funds in excess of budgeted hydrocarbon revenues and derives its mandate from the NSIA Act which was signed into law in May 2011.