Don’t mess with her. Don’t even think about it. Soft and supple with a girlish gush, Hadiza Bala Usman, the young and pretty Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) sure packs a punch. On first encounter, you are easily taken in by her charm and beauty, a coyish disarming smile which fades into the serenity of the ambience. So, you conclude she’s a buttered lady, a product of the Nigerian elite oligarch who would easily melt under pressure at her duty post as the top cat of the nation’s ports management authority.

Perish the thought. Lady Hadiza is no soft candy. She is actually a tough cookie. The first female to be appointed as Managing Director of NPA, she is not fazed by the historical fortune of her appointment; neither is she overwhelmed by the office which she now occupies, a position routinely occupied by men of older age status. They say women hardly tell their age; not this Hadiza. She tells you she’s not too young to lead the NPA at 41 (though her age belies her mid-thirty look).  Listening to her engage some media executives recently, you come away with the impression that the youth should fully take charge of the affairs of the nation in all sectors including governance at critical stages.

 She was firm and decisive about her mission. She was not intimidated by the big stage. She reeled out her operational blueprint and strategies in a fly. She was flawless in oratory, punctuating her statements with gesticulations that suggest a back-to-back knowledge of her turf. For one moment, you thought you were taking lecture notes on leadership from Indra Nooyi, the no-nonsense CEO of PepsiCo, one of the global female icons in corporate leadership famed for her derring-do, innovativeness and a willingness to explore new frontiers.

Nooyi once said: “Just because you are CEO, don’t think you have landed. You must continually increase your learning, the way you think, and the way you approach the organization.” True to type, Nooyi, the woman from a middle class India background who worked her way to the top, has been increasing her learning as well as the way she thinks. This has stamped a seal of success and healthy bottom lines in her exertions in the corporate circle.

Lady Hadiza much in many ways mirrors Nooyi’s leadership style. A relentless inclination to breaking new grounds, rousing the docile army, innovating for maximum result and effecting a mind-shift among otherwise passive employees. Presiding over the NPA, an agency steeped in the legendary public sector indolence, administrative lethargy and fiscal corruption, she has her job cut out. And she knows it. To get round the miasma that has over the years assailed the authority and impaired its efficiency, she has instituted a regime of reforms. But even that is like trying to literally move a mountain. Tough!

“We’re implementing some form of reform and when you’re doing a reform there’s a pushback but what is important is that we lay it out there before the public, to see what we’re doing and how you’re doing it and also for the people not to be distracted by various manners of narratives”, she told the media executives.

That really sums it up. Upon her appointment, there was a welter of revolt, albeit nuanced, from within the authority and among the political class, many of whom had been scheming for the plum job. She was said to be too young and too inexperienced for the job. That was one of the narratives and it was sustained by the scheming clan of political jobbers who would rather the old culture of operational tardiness subsists.

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But today, by hindsight, her appointment appears one of the best by President Muhammadu Buhari. The NPA is too critical an agency. It handles over 75 percent of Nigeria’s imports and exports. It is a huge revenue-generating agency but over the years, its operations have been opaque, shrouded in surreal secrecy. Lack of automation and a clear unwillingness of the staff to transit from the old, slow and sleazy way of doing things to a transparent and open vista have combined to strip the authority of efficiency and a culture of accountability.

But Lady Hadiza, made even tougher by years of activism, is clearing the cobweb. Yes, the BringBackOurGirls exponent has been up against the systemic rot that has crippled the nation’s ports manager. She has uncovered deliberately created financial conduits; she has exposed cases of missing money traced to some commercial banks; she has blocked  leakages and multiple avenues through which some vested interests have been stealing from the nation’s treasury, some vicariously. Much more, she has brought efficiency to bear on the operations of the authority, significantly reducing clearing time for goods at the port. A stickler for time, Lady Hadiza has not jettisoned the cause she once fought for with fiery fervour. She still spots the BringBackOurGirls brooch which she shows off with activistic zeal.

Those who have been profiting from the systemic rot in the NPA would not like her guts. To them, she is a spoiler, an ‘over-sabi’ (too knowledgeable) young woman who has no experience in port matters. That is a typical Nigerian syndrome. People resist change. They kick at reforms especially the type that opens them up for public scrutiny; the type of reforms that blocks the leakages in the system and denies them the opportunity to dip their hand into the public till at will, unrestricted and unhindered.

She says she believes in demystification of government, meaning she will keep details of operations at the ports open. To successfully achieve this, she must ruffle feathers, puncture ego and stamp on some feet, particularly the feet of the so-called untouchables. She’s been doing just that and she’s also getting the pushback: a blizzard of resistance. But Lady Hadiza is not one to capitulate to any garrison. The lioness in her leaps out when she talks about her determination to push through the reforms regime.

Whoever recommended her for this job did President Buhari and indeed Nigeria a great deal of service. Working under a President widely perceived as a fan of geriatrics, himself being one, Hadiza bucked a trend and answers to the question: are Nigerian youths too young to lead? For a government that trots out ease-of-doing-business as one of its totems to demonstrate a commitment to good governance, having Lady Hadiza as chief driver of the ports project in a season that compels and commands diversification of the economy is an asset. Besides, she is also flying the flag of the female folk. If Nigerians needed any evidence to demonstrate that what a man can do, a woman can do even better, Hadiza is a sure proof. The BringBackOurGirls promoter has inclined herself to yet another noble cause to BringBackOurPorts from the nadir of ineptitude and corporate governance destitution they have sunk into. Anybody who still doubts her competence should look at the balance sheet. Under her, receipts from the ports have increased, the conduits for stealing are being blocked, operational efficiency has improved with reduction in goods clearing downtime. That’s how to BringBackOurPorts by the BringBackOurGirls crusader. The wharf rats may not like her gumption but Nigeria needs her and many more of her type.