President Bola Tinubu has relieved Halima Shehu of her job as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the National Coordinator of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA).
On Tuesday, a top presidential official confirmed this development to BusinessDay in Abuja.
BusinessDay also learned that the President approved her suspension immediately and ordered an investigation into the activities of the multi-billion-naira federal government agency.
Details of the suspension could have been more sketchy when filing this report.
BusinessDay, however, gathered that the President has also approved Akindele Egbuwalo, the current National N-POWER Program Manager, as the acting National Coordinator NC and CEO pending the conclusion of the investigation.
Her suspension is coming about three months after the confirmation of her appointment by the Senate.
Halima, whose appointment was confirmed by the Senate about three months ago, had, before the appointment, served as the National Coordinator of the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, supervised by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, between 2017 and 2022.
Although reasons for her suspension were unavailable, the development came less than 24 hours after the President warned heads of MDAs to perform or leave the government.
Tinubu had, while signing the 2024 Appropriation Bill into law on Monday, singled out the N100b approval for school feeding in the 2024 budget as “priority area”
He declared that the N100bn provision for the feeding of school children will serve as ” a stimulant that will encourage our school attendance and others.”
The President noted that he has been meeting with local governments at sub-national levels to collaborate and jointly bring an all-inclusive program that will help.
” We will implement this. I want to assure Nigerians that all the MDS and our teams have been warned. That’s why we even take our time to separate economic planning from finance. MDAs must have regular reports of the budgetary performance in the area that we put in place to help ordinary Nigerians.
“The goal is to promote efficiency, dedication, and accountability. If you can not, you may have to leave us to do the job on your behalf.”
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