…As envoys deny terminal benefit payment
By Dennis Agbo
Nigerian envoys in foreign missions appear to be on a collision course with the Foreign Affairs Minister, Ambassador Yusufu Tuggar, over the return date for recalled diplomats.
The ministry of foreign affairs had on September 2, announced the recall of the ambassadors and high commissioners and gave them up until October 31 to return home.
However, the envoys made passionate appeal to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for extension of the return date to December 31, to enable their wards take their promotion exams and consequently streamline the academic calendar in order not to truncate their education by dropping a year.
The envoys’ appeal seemed to have received the president’s nod, only for the Foreign Affairs Minister, Tuggar, to announce last week that there was no such tenure extension for the ambassadors till December 31, insisting that the October 31 terminal date remained “sacrosanct”.
Irked by the minister’s rigid position and apparent lack of consideration for the educational plight of their children, the ambassadors are reported to be ready for a serious showdown with the minister.
The situation is said to be made worse by the financial crunch being faced by the foreign missions, including threats by various service providers to take them to court for non-payment of service charges.
One of the diplomats, who preferred not to be mentioned, told Vanguard reporter on phone that funding for the missions since the last five months had been problematic.
Consequently, the ambassadors raised alarm calling on President Tinubu to intervene before the entire nation was embarrassed, even as they dismissed insinuations that terminal benefits had been paid to them.
“As at today, no single mission has received any payment,” the ambassador said.
But since the news of the extension of the October deadline filtered into the media, the minister of foreign affairs not only debunked the report but also placed embargo on the foreign missions accounts for what he described as “to check frivolous spending by the ambassadors”.
The post Minister, foreign missions row over return date appeared first on Vanguard News.