Folarin Kehinde

The Staff members of the African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) on Wednesday called for the sacking of its National Coordinator/Chief Executive Officer Princess Gloria Akobundu.

The protesting staff who spoke with newsmen accused Akobundu of financial mismanagement, poor welfare and sane working environment condition for them.

The protester displayed placard bearing various inscriptions such as : “Princess Gloria Akobundu must go, enough is enough, “NEPAD is not a private sector “ She sold all utility Vehicles without replacement “ No working materials and the working environment is not conducive, among many others .

The convener of the protest Aliyu Abubakar explained that protest is against maladministration, financial mismanagement and not allowing staff to carry out their official duties and functions.

He explained that this alleged corruption has been happening for the past 8 years since the assumption of office by the CEO.

He alleged that consultants are employed to carry out duties meant for the staff, adding that there are no working material or a conducive working environment for staffs.

He said,” Well, the motive behind this protest is simple. It’s about financial mismanagement and not allowing staff to carry out their official duties and functions, so that is why we are here.

“Let me start by explaining about not allowing staff to carry out their official duties, like I said earlier, we are all staff, as you can see, this is NEPAD Nigeria. That is new partnership for African development, and we know it is a federal government establishment. It’s not a private organization, and in a situation whereby a staff of this establishment will not be allowed to carry out his official duty. I think it’s wrong, because we are being employed and we are being paid salary to come and carry out our official duties

“ But instead of that, it is outsiders and sometimes consultants that will be doing the job. That is why we’re here to tell the whole world, because for the past eight years, under the leadership of Princess Gloria Akobundu, this has been happening, and it’s not as if we are not been drawing her attention.

“We have been drawing her attention. We have written to her. We have been advising but all in vain. That is why we decided to take the bull by the horn, to come together, so that at least if maybe she think we are not the people that appoint her, but she has the principal, she was appointed by a president, and we are using this opportunity to send this message to His Excellency, President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to come to our aid, so that he can know what is going on in this organization for the past eight years.

“No, this protest is two days for now, today and tomorrow is just for two days. But if after these two days, we didn’t get any positive result, then we are going to proceed with the next line of action, which is we are going to the National Assembly and we are going to the office of the secretary to the government of the Federation, because this office is under SGF, because the SGF is the national focal point of NEPAD Nigeria, then we are going to head of Service, National Assembly so that they will hear what are going through.

“We want the federal government to call her to order that she should allow NEPAD staff to function.Let us do what we are employed to do.

“All the programs and all the money that the federal government is bringing to this organization, for us to carry programs and project, let them carry out those programs and project, there is international donation that always come from NEPAD Continental. For the past eight years, nobody know what they have been doing with that, because, from our findings, it has been going to a private account.

“So we want the federal government to use this we are using this opportunity. We are calling on, Mr. President, irrelevant authorities to please come to our aid .

Meanwhile, Princess Gloria Akobundu could not be reached as at press time.