DPR says appointment letter supposedly issued to Buhari’s aide is fake

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) on Tuesday said an appointment letter circulating on social media allegedly issued to Nigeria President media aide Bashir Ahmad is “fake” and a “handiwork of mischief maker.”

“We hereby advise members of the public to disregard the purported letter in its entirety as it is not from DPR,” DPR’s head of public affairs Paul Osu said in a statement.

“We wish to reiterate that employment into the Department is carried out in accordance with extant rules guiding such exercises in the Nigerian Public Service in line with due process.”

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 also denied the report. He said the story is “100% not true” and was a concocted claim. He also noted that he doesn’t even know where DPR office is. He said the only thing he knows about the organisation is that it is in Lagos.

A day after Ahmad’s denial of the said employment, Peoples Gazette doubled down on its claim by publishing a letter it claimed was issued to the presidential aide.

Apart from the denial from the DPR, President Buhari’s aide on digital communication Tolu Ogunlesi described the letter first published on Twitter by Peoples Gazette as “One of the worst, most embarrassing forgeries ever created.”