By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief

Fives years after former Executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Mrs. Modupe Sasore, embarked on restructuring the agency, the crisis generated by her action has continued to re-echo.

The challenge before current Chief Executive Officer of the agency, Chief David Adulugba, with the mandate of opening international market space for non-oil export, is how to reposition the organization and resolve the lingering crisis.

Adulugba who was first appointed CEO of NEPC on September 20, 2004 spent just about a year before former President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Sasore in his place.

Shortly, thereafter, she embarked on restructuring in December 2005 in which 500 of the 640 staff members of the agency were removed from office, leaving only 160 staff. All the directors of the council then were removed in the exercise which affected virtually all categories of staff.

Consequently, the affected staff protested in various ways and insisted on their being reinstated.  Both the presidency and the then Minister of Commerce were inundated with series of petitions in which the CEO was alleged to have acted in contravention of the Bureau of Public Service Reform, BPSR,  guidelines.

Others sued the NEPC at the Federal High Court, Abuja, where the matter was handled by Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako.

The Board of the council waded into the matter and set up an Establishment and General Purpose Committee, under the Chairmanship of Mr. E. O. Okeniyi with a mandate to thoroughly study the petitions and the entire exercise.

Okeniyi’s committee, discovered that the then CEO’s removal of many of the staff went contrary to the laid down guidelines. The committee equally asked the staff to withdraw the matter from the court and an out-of-court settlement was reached. It therefore recommended that 102 staff be recalled; 18 to be considered; 6 to be retired and 374 found unsuitable for re-absorption.

However on June 17, 2009, Adulugba who was removed by the Obasanjo administration was re-appointed CEO of NEPC by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. The recommendations of the committee were accepted by the ministry.

Those to be recalled were recalled and others retired. Those asked to be “considered”, by the ministry, it was learnt, were invited for a screening exercise only two  weeks ago, with the intention of re-calling those that pass the exercise.

But some of those found to be unsuitable for re-absorption by the Okeniyi committee have taken on Adulugba and have accused him of insensitivity to their plight.

They claimed to have been wrongly sacked by Sasore along with Adulugba himself but that after the CEO was returned, he left them in the cold. As learnt the CEO has send a fresh memo to the new board asking for a review of the matter with a view to screening more of those sacked in order to re-absorb those found suitable.