Oluyinka Onigbinde
Investigation by Shipping Position Daily has revealed that the Customs Comptroller General (CCG) Col Hameed Ali, (rtd) may have goofed over a recent statement that in the last seven years, the service has sacked over 2000 officers.
Ali, who featured during a media briefing coordinated by the Presidential Media Team recently in Abuja, said the service abhorred corruption and had zero tolerance for such officers.
He went further to state that many of the officers found to be short-changing the Service in its revenue drive, especially in the payment of duties that should accrue to the organisation have been shown the way out of the service.
However, findings by Shipping Position Daily, have revealed that the number of sacked officers in the last seven years is a far cry from the 2000 mentioned by the Customs boss.
Our correspondent however gathered that in the last seven years, about 2,000 officers have either retired or resigned as against the claim of being sacked.
According to our findings, the staff strength of NCS as at the time Hameed Ali was appointed CG in 2016 was about 17,500.
Investigations revealed that between January and September 2016, the service sacked 29 senior officers for various acts of gross misconduct after a disciplinary panel found them guilty of offences bordering on corruption and theft,
The service also dismissed 17 junior officers for offences ranging from drug addiction, certificate forgery, theft and unofficial absence from duty. This is according to a January 2017 internal memo signed by Ag. Controller Ganiyu I.A., who was then in charge of discipline in customs. In the letter, he announced that 45 officers were dismissed, while three others had their appointments terminated.
Even though Shipping Position Daily could not ascertain the total number of officers sacked in 2018 and 2019, a source who pleaded anonymity said about 68 officers were sacked in 2018 and 2019.
According to findings, in 2020, the Nigeria Customs Service sacked 14 officers, including two Assistant Comptrollers-General Aminu Dahiru and Bashir Abubakar.
Shipping Position Daily learnt that in 2018, a total of 577 officers retired from the service. This is according to a circular titled ‘CIRCULAR NO/HRD/2017/003-LIST OF OFFICERS/MEN FOR STATUTORY RETIREMENT IN YEAR 2018’ and signed by Sulaiman M.S.J, Comptroller Establishments, on behalf of Hameed Ali, the Comptroller General.
The figure included a Deputy Comptroller General, an Assistant Comptroller General, 11 Comptrollers, 27 Deputy Comptrollers, 27 Assistant Comptrollers and 23 Chief Superintendents of Customs.
In 2019/2020, the service retired 304 officers, top among which were two Deputy Comptrollers General, and three Assistant Comptrollers General. Other affected officers are 13 Comptrollers, 39 Deputy Comptrollers and 45 Assistant Comptrollers.
Others on the list were 71 chief superintendents of customs, 33 superintendents, 31 deputy superintendents, 32 assistant superintendents 1, 27 assistant superintendents 2, seven inspectors and one assistant inspector.
In a retirement notice signed by Acting Comptroller, of Establishment, A. G. Ahmed he had said the affected officers would be disengaged from service by 2020.
Meanwhile, stakeholders in the nation’s maritime industry are urging the Customs CG to publish the names of officers sacked, this is even as they also doubted the figure that was quoted by the CG of Customs.
Commenting, a former National President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr Eugene Nweke urged the Customs boss to publish the names of the 2,000 corrupt officials that the CG claimed to have been sacked.
In a statement by the former NAGAFF President, he said the failure of the Customs CG to disclose the names of the sacked officers means that customs is aiding and abetting corruption in the service.
“Ideally, such sacked corrupt officers should be marked as a serious ‘threat to Customs ports’, already characterised by name-dropping, he stated.
Read Also: “EMBER MONTHS”: “We Have Configured Our Operating Procedures To Ensure Safety Of Officers Against Smugglers – Customs
However, reacting to the insinuations that the service didn’t sack 2000 officers, the service spokesman, Deputy Controller Timi Bomodi said publishing the names of the sacked officers is illegal, even as he said the service has put in place a mechanism to curb corruption and corruption tendencies in the service.
He said: “It’s interesting and this is the first time I am commenting on this. The CG made a presentation of over two hours, so many wonderful achievements were highlighted, but this emphasis on the officers that have been removed from the service is just curious to me.
“There are administrative procedures put in place by the service to weed out the bad officers, it’s not a one-off thing; it’s a continuous thing, even as we speak there are officers at headquarters that are still undergoing discipline procedures.
“For us to now start publishing names of officers that were in one way or the other affected, I don’t think it’s legal.
“There are administrative procedures and incentives that we have put in place in such a way that we have cleaned the system up of people that are not compliant with rules and regulations of the service .
“For us now to go a step further by publishing names is not worth it. These procedures have been on since the CG came to office”, he said.
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