Hadiza Usman has debunked the rumours that she had an affair with the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, and that the affair led to her appointment as NPA DG.
The Managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), shut down the rumour when she appeared on TVC programme on Monday March 9th, in celebration of the International Women’s Day.
She said “I am definitely not his girlfriend. The governor is my mentor and my boss. He has been very supportive of my career and the career of every other woman that has worked for him. As you are aware, Kaduna State is the first state in northern Nigeria that has an elected female deputy governor. So you can see he has that commitment having women in positions of authority so that rumour is completely untrue.
These are the things they say to women to pull us down. For everything you have done in terms of showcasing your competence, they always reference and attribute it to the fact that you are in a relationship with another person..
The bottomline is that you got a job and you perform, so when people reference that you got there because you were somebody’s girlfriend, that is a pull down”.