SURE-P Chairman Resigns, Jonathan Shops for Replacement
Busolami Idowu
The Chairman of Subsidy reinvestment programme, SURE-P,
Christopher Kolade has resigned. The former Nigeria’s High
Commissioner to the United Kingdom, in a letter to President
Goodluck Jonathan, said he was leaving at the end of this
month before his 81st birthday, which comes up in
December.
Recall that Kolade’s Deputy, Major- General Mammam
Kontagora (rtd), who would have replaced him, died in May
this year.
The development means that the presidency must come up
with replacement to fill the two positions in a matter of days.
The letter which conveyed the outgoing chairman’s message
dated September 25 and entitled ‘Withdrawal from
Chairmanship of the SURE-P Committee’ reads: “I wish to
inform you, respectfully, of my decision to resign from the
position of Chairman of the SURE-P Committee.
“My desire is that the resignation should take effect as soon
as Mr. President names a new chairman, but not later than
the end of November, 2013.
“Mr. President, it has been a worthwhile experience for me to
serve as chairman since the inauguration of the committee in
February 2012. However, as I approach my 81st birthday, I
wish to retire from the more time and energy consuming
parts of my responsibilities and activities, one of which is the
SURE-P Committee chairmanship.
“Mr. President, please accept my sincere thanks and
appreciation for the opportunity to serve in the position of
chairman, as well as my prayers for good progress and
success for Nigeria in the years ahead.”
Kolade had stated that although he is still mentally and
physically fit, time has come for him to attend to his private
life and his family.
Shedding more light on why he chose to bow out at this time,
the former Chairman of Cadbury Plc said “As at the time I
was asked to come and take charge of the SURE-P, on the
day that the President spoke to me, I was a few days away
from my 79th birthday. So at the end of last year, I was 80
years old. I thank God that I’m strong, and in good health and
my simple mind is still ticking, but there comes a time when you are at my age that you ask yourself, is this what you should be doing now? Should you be spending your time at this moment fighting rumours anD trying to explain the same information many times?
“So, middle of this year, I went to the President and said to
him, I want to leave but if you remember my deputy chairman
then, Mamman Kontagora had just died. So the President now
agreed that he would appoint another Deputy chairman and
that I would work with this Deputy chairman for a while so
that the place is not suddenly empty. The Deputy chairman
dies, the chairman goes but that is what we have been
working on and I have actually written a letter to the
President to let him know that latest, at the end of this month,
I’m out of SURE-P. So, he has that letter.”
“We feed on rumours and both in my family and in my
religion, they don’t like rumours. The letter was dated
September 25, 2013. So if you hear or if rumour begins to
indicate that I’m leaving, I want you to know that members of
my Committee already know that I’m going. So, it’s not a
secret.”
The resignation of Kolade is coming at a time SURE- P is
facing corruption allegation . The National Assembly has
accused the committee of “stealing several billions of
Naira”.
