The appointment of Col Hameed Ali (rtd) as the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service by President Muhammadu Buhari is by far the most controversial issue that has come up in the Nigerian maritime industry in recent time.
Expectedly, it received the fiercest negative comments from various interests. After the voluntary retirement of the then CG of Customs; Alhaji Dikko Abdulahi Inde, industry watchers had expected that his successor would naturally be ‘an insider’, but they we were all shocked when President Muhammadu Buhari gave the job to his close confidant and former Military Governor of Kaduna state.
And since the appointment, Col Alli has not hidden his disdain for what the Service has become. By his perception, the Nigeria Customs Service is riddled with corruption and peopled by corrupt personnel. Little wonder, his mantra has been zero tolerance for corruption. He has threatened to jail any officer who is caught in the act.
The emergence of Col Ali was certainly as a result of President Muhammadu Buhari’s belief that the Nigeria Customs Service could no longer be trusted in the hands of an ‘insider’ as the Comptroller General.
To underscore his perception of the Customs that he has come to head, he pointedly told bewildered officers during his maiden visit to the FCT Command that they were corrupt and he was prepared to catch and ‘slaughter’ scapegoats! These were his words: “The general view of the public is that customs is the most undisciplined and corrupt service because of the nature of our job that needs to be addressed. “You are not in customs to make money and enrich yourself, but to work hard because if you are caught you must face the law. “None of you should make me use you as an example; if your intention is to be corrupt then you cannot survive this time around. “No more god-fatherism in Customs; you will earn promotion, not get promotion and for you to earn it, you must attain the qualification based on performance evaluation”.
Since Col Alli became the boss of the Nigeria Customs Service, things have gone awry. Revenue has plummeted to an unexpectedly low level. At the moment, the Service has lost about 35 per cent of its revenue. He has however to fall in cargo importation occasioned by some unfavourable policies emanating from the CBN.
Admitting that it could be worse, Col Alli added that: “With this trend, there is no way we can, by any chance, meet our target. We are hoping and praying that with the release of the budget and with the now relaxed forex market, that traders will begin to pick up and import things. If things do not improve, certainly, we are in big problem,” Alli said.
As a maritime media outfit, we are more concerned the CG of Customs will record such a failure and still want to explain it away as caused by CBN forex policy.
Now that the same CBN has increased exchange rate for duty payment toN282 to One Dollar, maybe customs revenue will soar. But we very much doubt it.
Two things are still wrong with the Customs Service; top among which is the appointment Col Ali as its CG. The service is a revenue collecting agency that requires an experienced Customs officer. We do not believe that Customs lacks honest men to assume the position of CG. The second issue is that Col Alli has not instilled any discipline in the Service since he was appointed.
With all the noise about wanting to curb corruption, we are surprised that not one scape goat has been caught.
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