The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ibrahim Lamuwa, has denied allegations of sexual harassment made by Simisola Fajemirokun-Ajayi, a staff member of the ministry.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, had on May 27, 2024, written to the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Folasade Yemi-Esan, to probe the allegation.
“Bearing in mind the gravity of the matter, I feel it necessary to draw your attention to it and ask that you handle it accordingly,” Tuggar wrote in the cover attached to the petition.
In an official reaction, through his legal team led by Audu Anuga (SAN), Lamuwa strongly denied all the assertions made by Mrs Fajemirokun-Ajayi, one of the minister’s aides.
In the statement published by PRNigeria on Wednesday, Anuga faulted the claims, saying the accuser read wrong meanings into the courteous dispositions of the Permanent Secretary.
It read: “We are legal representatives of Ambassador Ibrahim Lamuwa, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have been authorised to make the following statement on his behalf, in response to allegations of sexual harassment levelled against him by Mrs Simisola O. Fajemirokun-Ajayi, an aide to the Honorable Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“The media, particularly the social media, has been inundated with the digital copy of a petition written by legal representatives of Mrs. Fajemirokun-Ajayi against Amb. Lamuwa. This petition was leaked to generate sympathy for her unsubstantiated claims.
“We wish to state categorically that our client has never made any sexual advances towards Mrs. Simisola O. Fajemirokun-Ajayi, who he is aware is a married woman, neither has he ever made suggestive comments or innuendos that requested any form of untoward relationship between himself and her.
“Our client distinctly recalls the events at the ministry’s retreat on October 7th 2023 where Mrs Fajemirokun-Ajayi claims that he invited her to his room. Our client states categorically that he never made such an invitation and that his only communication with Mrs Fajemirokun-Ajayi, which was an overt one, was where he checked on her, like he did to all participants on whether they had been well-lodged in their hotels.
“He further recalls that the instance where he spoke of her as a nursing mother, during the same retreat was in a colloquial conversation they were having with other participants, where one participant even responded jokingly that when a woman says “her baby” it could mean either her husband or one of her children, of which he innocuously joked asking “how big is the baby?”
“Our client maintains that those conversations were made jokingly and sees their misinterpretation as malicious and with ill intent. Our client also maintains that it is absurd for Mrs Fajemirokun-Ajayi to claim that he invited her to Hong Kong, given that the conversation they were both having was on how Hong Kong had digitised its work processes as far back as 1999.
“Our client wonders how such a conversation became interpreted as an invitation for her to travel alongside himself, knowing full well that she is an aide to the minister. How can she leave the minister to follow the permanent secretary on a vacation? Would that not be the height of delusion for the one requesting and the one heeding the request?
“It is clear that the minister’s aide has misinterpreted ordinary conversations, made openly and in the presence of other participants, for untoward intentions. We believe these allegations are directly tied to our client’s firm objections raised regarding Mrs Fajemirokun-Ajayi’s improper requests, particularly regarding financial matters in the ministry.
“For example, Mrs. Fajemirokun-Ajayi made a trip to the World Economic Forum (Davos), of which she sought a reimbursement for the ministry. Our client firmly explained to her that while the ministry may look at avenues to refund her expenses, it is not the appropriate process for a trip to be made without approval, and then funded with taxpayers’ money. after the fact.
“Further to this is the fact of Mrs Fajemirokun-Ajayi’s unfamiliarity with civil service rules and processes, where she had requested access to policy files and even financial records of high-level ministry activities from our client. By no means should the permanent secretary, as chief accounting officer of the ministry, provide such sensitive documents to an aide of the minister, worse via a WhatsApp chat.
“There are due processes in government, and they must be followed. “We must emphasise that Mrs Fajemirokun-Ajayi is a political appointee, not a civil servant. Thus, finance and policy matters are out of her bounds in this instance.
“It is crucial to mention that our client, in all his 32 years of service in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, never received a query nor a report against him bordering on harassment, let alone sexual harassment. During this period, our client has served in Hong Kong, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Syria and more recently, Senegal, and there has never been a negative report on his conduct in any of these countries.
“Ambassador Lamuwa has also served for nine years in the State House. From the office of the vice president to the office of the chief of staff to the president, and to the office of the president, and no negative report or allegation of any kind has ever been raised against him,” the legal document stated.
