For some time now a quiet storm has been brewing at the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, the agency the Federal Government established in 1995 to "promote, co-ordinate and monitor all investments in Nigeria."
This brief makes the commission an important institutional player in the country's political economy. This importance is illustrated by, for example, its being listed by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission as a Category 'A' agency along with 68 others out of a total of 269 federal parastatals. Only 28 parastatals under 'Special Category' enjoy a higher status than those in Category 'A'. The rest are in categories 'B' to 'D'.
Late November last year, the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) petitioned its Chairman, Chief Emmanuel Iwuayanwu, over what it described as the "spates of sporadic victimisation" in the commission by its management. The petition, according to the Nigerian Tribune of December 1, 2010, called on the chairman to rein in the management if the commission is to avoid "the unwholesome development from blossoming into industrial disharmony of monstrous proportion that is capable of throwing the nation into another round of labour crisis."
Making a mountain out of a molehill at NIPC (http://thenationonlineng.net/web3/columnist/wednesday/mohammed-harunna/23771.html)