The Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (AREFFN) has charged the new Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Alli to restore the use of federal character in the promotion of officers and in the recruitment of new ones.
This charge was issues by the President of the association, Dr. Frank Ukor during a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos yesterday.
The Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (AREFFN) has charged the new Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Alli to restore the use of federal character in the promotion of officers and in the recruitment of new ones.
This charge was issues by the President of the association, Dr. Frank Ukor during a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos yesterday.
Meanwhile, a former Vice Chairman of the Tin Can Island chapter of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) Chief Achike Molokwu has tasked the Customs boss to sack all the Deputy Comptroller Generals and Assistant Comptroller Generals he met on ground, alleging that they are corrupt.
Speaking on the need for federal character, Dr. Frank Ukor noted that the federal character has been rubbished in the Customs. He raised an alarm that the Nigeria Customs Service is fast becoming "Northern CustomsService" because it is largely dominated by northerners.
"Check the number of people in the service, you will see that majority of them are from the North, if you come to the Western port here, the lingua franca here is northern language, we wonder really if the Nigeria Customs Service is for the North" Ukor said.
He added that "if you check, apart from the CGs which most of them are from the north, most of the other ranks, you will see that the Federal character is rubbished, it was not taken into consideration"
He charged the new Customs CG that he should make sure that recruitment and promotions reflect the federal character.
Ukor noted that the President would be watching to see if the CG fails or succeeds; stressing that Col. Alli's failure as Customs CG will also mean that all the officers failed to give him required support.
But on his part, Chief Achike Molokwu of ANLCA alleged that the Customs service is full of corruption and that cleansing the system would have to start from the top.
Chief Molokwu told Shipping Position Daily that "the DCGs and ACGs are the people polluting the service, so I will advise the new man to wipe out all the ACGs and DCGs so that he can now work with the Controllers, just like Buhari is working with permanent secretaries."
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