Who’s Distracting NPA Boss, Mohammed Bello-Koko?

Society Watch

The current Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mohammed Bello-Koko is a great achiever by all standards. His intimidating profile is said to be envied by many of his counterparts.

Bello-Koko had worked in the banking sector for a long time, rising to become a Deputy Regional Manager at Zenith Bank Plc.

In 2016, he was appointed Executive Director of NPA, after he had proceeded on a leave of absence from the bank in 2015. He was in charge of finance and administration under the sacked MD, Hadiza Bala-Usman. Though one cannot rule out the grace of God in his life, his resilience, hard work, sagacity and ingenuity are some of the reasons he has continued to shine. Could this, therefore, be the reason those who feel threatened by Bello-Koko’s achievements have allegedly launched a smear campaign against him?

Society Watch gathered while the brilliant man is busy repositioning the NPA, his detractors have gone to town to claim that he bought a house worth £1,750,000 in the United Kingdom.

However, a credible source, who sought anonymity, confirmed that the allegation “is baseless and spurious”, adding that it was only to distract Bello-Koko from rewriting the story of the NPA.

 It was revealed that the mansion located at 2A Beech Hill, Barnet, Greater London, EN4 0JP, was bought by Bello-Koko on November 06, 2015. It was also gathered that he actually bought the property in the UK when he was still with Zenith Bank before he was appointed into any position at the NPA.

The property, the source added, was declared with the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) before he was appointed into public office, while the mortgage loan, which is to be repaid over 25 years, was signed in June 2015.

It would be recalled that in 2014, he moved his family out of the country for security considerations after they faced a life-threatening attack in Port Harcourt, Rivers State during the 2015 polls.

Society Watch gathered that they had moved in before they discovered that the property was not large enough for a family of seven.

A few months later, he was said to have found a house suitable for the size of his family and approached a bank for a mortgage loan to purchase it.

 “This over-flogged issue of Bello-Koko’s mortgage-financed property cannot qualify to be news because it does not meet the qualifying element of newness. It can only pass for a reused, a rehashed, worn out and resurrected story with no new angle or development.

“I urge him not to be distracted in his commitment and focus on his current assignment at the NPA, with the ongoing transformation, re-engineering and repositioning of the maritime agency for greater transparency and operational efficiency,” the source added.

 Since his appointment, Bello-Koko has made the fight against corruption one of his cardinal programmes. He has always reiterated the organisation’s commitment to the elimination of systemic corruption and other criminal practices at the nation’s seaports.

Less than 10months into his appointment, 53-year-old  Bello-Koko has proved his mettle at the NPA.