BY NGOBUA JOHNNIE – Abuja –
Senior Deputy Directors in the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), have decried unjust career stagnation and unfair promotion of staff in the Bureau.
In a recent petition signed by the Concerned Senior Directors of BPE and addressed to the Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima who is also the Chairman, National Council on Privatization (NCP), they called for his intervention to rescue their career progression and correct injustices in the Bureau.
The Senior Directors particularly called out the promotions approved by the NCP in its meeting held on 23rd August, 2025, where two Deputy Directors, Mrs. Saratu Gafai and Mrs. Grace Ben-Okezie were hastily promoted to the rank of Directors without due process, while before them were nine Deputy Directors who had been on the list awaiting promotion for over 11 years.
They lament that the newly promoted Directors may have worked and served under the sidelined Deputy Directors who themselves must have acted as Directors of Departments at some point.
In the letter, the Senior Directors decribed such a show of injustice in the promotion of staff of BPE as very sad, demoralizing, appalling and unfair.
“It is therefore very sad, demoralizing, appalling and unfair by any Standard, for the NCP to consider and approve the promotion of these very junior Deputy Directors over and above their seniors without following due process on the extant Public Service Rules or Circulars by the Head of Service of the Federation, there is no moral justification for such decision,” they said.
The Concerned Directors maitained that promotions in the public/civil service establishments should be based on standard procedures and public service extant rules of the Federal Government of Nigeria and not by “who know who”. They maintained that what they have now is a gross violation of due process by an agency that prides itself on responsible reforms.
In the strongly worded petition, the Senior Directors in the Bureau, called on the NCP Chairman to act decisively to curtail such unpopular and obnoxious promotion exercises to prevent anarchy that is brewing in the Bureau. Particularly, they petitioned the Chairman to; suspend the recent promotions of the two Junior Deputy Directors to Directors in the BPE which contravens the PRS and BPE staff Manual. Mandate the management of BPE to follow due process in the promotion of their staff in accordance with the extant Public Service Rules and circulars by the Head of Service of the Federation. Reinstate the Ag. Directors and /or confirm them on the job positions. And lastly, mandate management to revert the old existing system of promoting Directors based on seniority, competence, merit and geographical zones without contravening the rules in BPE.
It would be recalled that, the issue of stagnation of promotion of Senior Deputy Directors in the BPE had been brought to the attention of the current management both formally and informally through several petitions and agitations. Notably, management responded through a letter dated 10th March 2025, with a promise to correct the anomaly.
Despite the response, nothing has changed according to the Senior Directors. Therefore, the directors decried that for whatever reason, intent or disguise, promoting junior staff over their seniors in thesame organization has a negative impact on the psych of the work force and career progression, and thus have decided to petition the Vice president and chairman of NCP to address the ugly trend.
