The Senate has ordered the reinstatement of Mrs Faith Umoh who was unlawfully retired from the services of the Nigeria Customs Services allegedly without following due process.
Mrs Umoh had petitioned the Senate in July, 2008, alleging irregularities in the circumstances that led to her unceremonious exit from the customs, even as she pointed out that other officers with lesser qualification and performance records were left behind while she was wrongfully retired at the age of 47 years. She also accused the Nigeria Customs Service of victimization. Her petition was pushed by Senator Effiong Bob.
The order on the Comptroller-General of Customs, Abdullahi Inde Dikko to immediately reinstate the former assistant comptroller general followed the adoption of the report of a Senate Committee that was set up to investigate the circumstances that led to the premature retirement of Mrs Faith Umoh from the Nigeria Customs Service.
The upper legislature also ordered the Comptroller-General of Customs to ensure that the petitioner was paid all her entitlements and her rank and seniority restored, affirming that “the retirement of Umoh was not only premature but also without due process”.
According to the report of the committee which was sighted by our correspondent and which formed the basis for the senate resolution, Mrs Umoh’s retirement was not based on any known criteria. In the report, it was stressed that although it could not prohibit any of the different services of government to re-organise and restructure for greater performance, the retirement of Umoh was premature and without any procedure, noting that the manner of Umoh’s retirement was suggestive of victimization by the then Comptroller-General of Customs.
According to the report, “this kind of vendetta for whatever reason is unacceptable in a service that requires fair and equitable treatment”. “The then- newly appointed Comptroller-General was to serve for less than a year because his retirement was at hand and to engage in such massive retirement exercise buttresses the point that there was something more to the purported re-organisation”.
“That the new Comptroller General that is currently serving had not retired any officer since he had been appointed also indicates that the so-called tradition is not really correct”, the report further pointed out.
Commenting on the outcome of the enquiry, Senator Effiong Bob said that the outcome was a “the triumph of democracy and rule of law. She felt that there was a breach of her right to serve up to the age of 60 or 35 years in service as required by regulation. “We thank God that there is rule of law and efficacy of democracy. Without democracy where would this have happened? Where will you have debated this injustice? “The essence of the petition was that there was no query at all nor has she been warned of any act of misconduct throughout her career”, he pointed out.
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