Bashir Ahmad denies being ‘quietly appointed’ to DPR by Buhari

Presidential aide Bashir Ahmad has denied being given a secret appointment in a unit under the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Ahmad said the story is “100% not true” and was a concocted claim.

“A friend sent me a link to a concocted story from an online news blog that the President has quietly appointed me as a manager of the DPR, a department of Ministry of Petroleum Resources, for those who want to know the truth, the story is 100% FALSE,” Ahmad tweeted. “I am not a staff of the DPR.”

Peoples Gazzette, a digital news outlet, Monday published  a report that Ahmad was appointed “to supervise a powerful and lucrative division at the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) — a role that supersedes his work experience and area of expertise.”

The report said despite Ahmad retaining his presidency appointment, “he recently hustled his way in as the head of the newly-established National Production Monitoring System (NPMS) of DPR – Nigeria’s preeminent oil and gas sector regulator, the Gazette learnt from four officials at the presidency and DPR with sufficient details of the appointment.”

Peoples Gazzeette claimed that Ahmad’s purported appointment was “tacitly executed in line with Buhari regime’s culture of opacity, presents a blanket remunerative boost for the young presidential aide, as he is now set to draw dual salaries and allowances from Nigeria’s marginal commonwealth.

Quoting a source within the State House, Peoples Gazzette reported that “Bashir got the appointment early January, but his documentation took place last week…It (the appointment) was delayed following the death of one of his friends, Jamilu Ibrahim Shinkafi, in an accident along Bauchi-Nasarawa Road, precisely in Akwanga in Nasarawa.”

Ahmad has since the initial denial said “the story is 100% NOT true. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know where DPR office is, the only thing I know it is in Lagos. That’s all.”

A source in the Presidency described the report as a ‘fake story’.