…Stakeholders react

By Uche Usim

Fresh facts have emerged as to why President Muahmmadu Buhari appointed a non-Customs officer as the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), even as divergent views have greeted the move.

While some applaud the appointment of Hameed Ali, a retired Army Colonel, to head the Customs, others describe it as a jaundiced move that may have scathing repercussion on the service.

Daily Sun learnt senior Customs officer within the ranks of Assistant Comptroller General (ACG) and Deputy Comptroller General (DCG), who were beneficiaries of the old order, heavily lobbied influential politicians to persuade the President to appoint them as the next Customs boss.

The President was said to have been saddened by the high number of lobbyists, making a case for one officer or the other, a development that exposes the under-belly corruption in the sensitive establishment.

President Buhari, who feels appointing any of the desperate officers, may just be a continuation of the Dikko era, jolted them by picking a man out of the blue.
Industry sources say a flurry of petitions against Dikko had flooded the Presidency and having any of his DCGs or ACGs may scuttle the impending restructuring exercise at the establishment.

A Comptroller of Customs who confided in Daily Sun said “if you see the amount of money spent on influential politicians, you’ll know that if any of those desperate officers was picked as CGC, it will be looting galore because they must recoup their expenses or investment of you like to put it that way. But the President got high intelligence about the huge money changing hands and knew there was an ulterior motive behind it. Why spend so much money lobbying if you know your motive is to serve your country? So, he kept his plans close to his chest and shunned all the names given to him by his friends and chose a totally different man. Now, the man is expected to face his job and do it without caring on whose ox is gored. He has no one to please except the government. We won’t hear of CG’s boys, CG’s men and other anointed officers. If you do your job well, you don’t have anything to fear. I like what Buhari did”, he said.

However, some industry analysts do not share the Comptroller’s view as they see the appointment of an old retired Colonel as a retrogressive strategy.

They insist he has to spend a long time learning the ropes in a rapidly-evolving establishment that does not have such time to waste.

They believe that he might derail before he understands the workings and that may hurt the service and the nation as a whole.

According to the President of the League of Maritime Editors, Ovie Edomi, the President goofed with the appointment of Hammed Ali as the new Customs boss.
“It comes with a lot of surprises. First, the desire of every top Customs officer is to get to the peak of the career and impact on young officers but in a situation where officers who have gotten to the peak cannot be called upon to head the Customs, it creates room for lack of confidence, low morale and dissatisfaction amongst the rank and file.

The resultant effect is dearth of professionalism and low morale, which impacts on revenue drive.

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/why-buhari-chose-an-outsider-as-customs-boss/

Cc lalasticlala

Good one my president

Rubbish..you can't just break the chain of command..is he saying there's no single efficient officer in the whole customs service...nepotism at the highest order...

These are fallacies and cook up lies to justify the retrogressive action Buhari already carried out. The lies here are not enough to truncate a career progression of these uniform men. Buhari is wicked How will those next in. rank do now considering years of service cum rank progression and achievement s? I have never seen a dull govt like this before

Nice Move....jonathan would have set up a commitee to investigate how politicians were bribed by senior custom officers.

Another committe would have been set up to verify the reports of the earlier committee.

Wasted regime.

ERODEDEAST:
BOO.HARI is a "BLOCKED HEAD"

When Sani Abacha took power in 1993, he set up a probe into the NCS, which was led by Major-General Paul Tarfa. The panel charged with investigating the activities of the NCS was given a year in which to complete its findings and a sole administrator was appointed in the meantime. Brigadier-General S.O.G. Ango remained as head of the NCS until 1999, when he was replaced by Ahmed Aliyu Mustapha.