Prof. Sani Mashi, the Director-General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET), has been sacked by the minister of aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, Daily Independent is reporting.
The paper is reporting that Mashi was given the boot on Thursday. The former Director-General, it was gathered, was in the NiMET office on Friday to pack his personal effects from the office to which he was appointed in February 2017 with a five-year tenure, which was expected to elapse in 2022, but renewable for another term.
Mashi had been a visitor to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Abuja in the past six months, visiting the anti-crime commission every Friday.
Some top personnel in NiMET, including one Muktar Sirika, a younger brother to Sirika, appointed in 2015 to a Grade Level 17 in charge of Protocols in NiMET, were reportedly not comfortable with some transactions in the agency made by Mashi.
This, it was gathered, prompted them to write a petition against Mashi to the EFCC, which Sirika eventually used to nail the professor who, like Sirika, is also nursing a governorship ambition for 2023 in Katsina State.
Mashi’s marriage to one of Mamman Daura’s daughters, a nephew to President Muhammadu Buhari, was the connection that got him the NiMET job and has never been a candidate of Sirika’s from the outset.
Besides, some of the accusations against Mashi, which Sirika used to nail him, includes issues over COVID-19 funds approved for NiMET by the government, depletion of the internally generated revenues (IGR) of the agency, and allegedly, single handedly awarding contracts to the tune of N30 million and above without recourse to extant rules.
There are reports that Sirika already has two candidates to fill up the position of Mashi in acting capacity, but can only choose one of the two. One is Prof. Mataju, a General Manager, Climate Services in NiMET, and another professor from Katsina are being pencilled down to take over the position.
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