Reactions have continued to trail last week’s cancellation of a long scheduled promotion examination for top personnel of the Nigeria Customs Service, even as a legal practitioner, Ovien Michael Imonitie has called on the management of the customs to compensate the affected officers.
The customs promotion exams was abruptly cancelled last week Monday after all the 1,164 officers from all over the federation were already gathered at the Abuja headquarters of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) as at 7 o’clock in the morning awaiting their screening.
The examination exercise was however cancelled and postponed indefinitely without any given explanation.
Barr.Imonitie in a chat with Shipping Position Daily has however sued for incentives to be given to those officers who risked their lives to move from their various locations to write the exam. He said that failure to do this, the customs management would further fuel corruption in the service.
He noted that the officers, mostly from the level of Superintendent to Deputy Comptrollers had to mobilize for themselves in terms of transportation, accommodation, feeding, and paid their way to have good results or be promoted.
According to the maritime practitioner, it was laughable that the only security agency in Nigeria that scores the promotions of officers was the NCS through conduct of examination, while others uses the performance method to promote their personal.
“What a wonderful innovation but poorly manage by the Board because it encourage corruption within that service”
“If the officers of the Nigeria Custom Service had to travel to Abuja for any examination for promotion sake, why do we have Zonal Offices across the Federation? I know you would be thinking alongside with me that what are the zonal heads doing? Are they really in charge of their zone? The answer to this question is NO”
“Since JAMB is a federal establishment and has its corporate offices spread across the nooks and crannies of this country and the NCS wanted to use their medium in conducting such examination, then the examination would have been conducted at all Zonal Headquarters”
“At this point, we are asking the Board of Management Team of the Nigeria Custom Service Abuja Headquarters, to give compensation to all the affected officers that left their duty posts, especially those Assistant Comptrollers with Passwords and Finger print”
He told our correspondent that the absence of the senior officers from their duty posts further added to the hardship on clearing agents whose documents needed their attention because of the newly introduces NICISS 2, which doesn't give room to any other person unless the officers the documents has been assigned to.
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