The Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has sacked four of its staff who petitioned the House of Representatives following a promotion scandal that rocked the agency in 2015.

According to Daily Trust report, the four aggrieved staff were sacked in separate letters dated October 15 and signed by the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Olusegun Awolowo.

But the chairman of the council’s governing board, Sen Ibrahim Musa, told Daily Trust on telephone that the sack was not effective as the board did not adopt the minutes of the meeting where the decision was taken.

The sacked staff were part of the initial 27 staff of the council that wrote a petition to the House in 2016, alleging irregularities, nepotism, sectionalism and favouritism in the promotion exercise.

Their sack came despite two separate resolutions of the House, which barred the agency from taking any action against the aggrieved staff, whom the lawmakers said only exercised their constitutional right.

The resolutions were communicated to the agency by the Clerk to the National Assembly Mohammed Sani-Omolori.

The four sacked staff comprised of a deputy director on Grade Level 16, Abdullahi Kudu Mamman, and the three others who are all assistant directors on Grade Level 15, namely Tijjani K. Zakari, Mrs Tokubo F. Adeyemi and Mansur M. Yusuf.

Awolowo said in the sack letters titled ‘Termination of Appointment for Services no Longer Required,’‎ that the decision was reached at the NEPC’s governing board’s meeting of October 10.

While Mamman served at the NEPC Kano Regional Office, Zakari was at Gusau state office; Adeyemi, Benin state office and Yusuf was at the NEPC headquarters in Abuja.

It was gathered that the four staff were singled out for sack as they were the principal officers among the petitioners and they refused to “beg Awolowo to forgive” them for embarrassing him by sending a petition to the House in the first place.

•Excerpted from a Daily Trust report