Salihijo, MD/CEO of REA, had caught the ire of some civil society organisations who alleged a breach of the contract code by accusing him of retaining membership in a company which got government contracts, while still functioning as the MD/CEO, REA.
The allegations were, however, found to be untrue as the query of the status search from records at the CAC showed he resigned before taking up his current role.
Speaking at a webinar on ‘Institutional Reforms in REA’, Salihijo said he inherited an agency in 2019 that needed reform.
According to him, part of the reforms carried out at the agency which had improved service delivery was to observe strict standard operating procedures which before now had been lacking.
He also said nearly 80% of staff in the agency were interns before he came but he immediately regularised their employments, leading to the conversion of 130 interns as full employees of the agency which followed due process.
He lamented a pushback against ongoing reforms at the agency by vested interests who were applying pressure with the hope that there would be some kind of change.
Salihijo cited the instance of a firm, Donnington Nigeria Limited, as behind a campaign of calumny that had targeted him and two other Executive Directors of the agency.
The firm, in his case, he said, had maliciously misrepresented records at the CAC that made it look like he held the position of a director in Velocity Logistics & Marine Services Limited while at the same time being the boss of the REA, just to malign him.
He said, “For the Velocity story, for instance, where it was alleged that I breached the contract code. I have visibility on the document, that they had. What happened, is that those guys actually gave out the Memorandum and Article of Association which of course will have the directors on it. But what happens at the CAC is that once there is an update on directors, it doesn’t reflect on the Memorandum and Articles of Association but it reflects on the CAC Status report (i.e. form C02 and form C07). The right thing they could have done is to do a status report which would have shown that in this case I have been removed as a director as far back as April 2019. What happened is that the documents they saw were not actually the updated ones. That is why ThisDay, who had carried that story, if you noticed, they have taken it down, just because now they have the facts.”
He also disclosed that he had discussed the infractions with the Registrar General of CAC, to address the gap, in order not to be exploited to malign innocent individuals.
