JUST like his benefactor, President Muhammadu Buhari, whose promised change for Nigeria seem elusive, Nigerian Pilot Newspaper has stumbled unto disturbing details of how the Customs helmsman, Colonel Hameed Ali, rtd, has presided over the most corrupt regime in the more than 100 years of the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS. Initially touted as incorruptible and best suited to clean the rot left by the former CGC, Dikko Abdullahi, maritime stakeholders are unequivocal that Ali’s Customs stinks from the mass of stench oozing out of its Wuse Zone 3 office, Abuja. Our investigations revealed that though openly demanding for bribes at Customs formations nationwide has become the norm rather than the practice, the arrowhead of the institutionalised corruption are the CGC’s Compliance Team and an army general on secondment to Ali from the army headquarters. According to a former deputy comptroller general of customs, “This is the most corrupt regime we have seen in our recent history. Go round the ports and other command formations and you will see officers taking bribes openly. Officers are no longer discreet about it,
an indication that the head is rotten. They openly intimidate unsuspecting importers to all manner of questionable queries with threats of debit note. “In our days officers were more discreet about this, but not any more under Ali’s watch. On why Ali is unable act on the widespread allegations of corruption, the former custom chief said its either the CGC lacks the capacity to act decisively or he may be a direct beneficiary of the loot”. His verdict was corroborated by Nigeria Pilot’s investigation spanning six months. Despite the touted toga of his incorruptibility, this newspaper can confirm that the culture of weekly monetary returns from lucrative command heads which was introduced during the tenure of Abdullahi is still very much in place and the clearing house for such slush funds are the CGCs Compliance Team. Failure by any importer to comply would lead to either failure to book such goods leading to either detention of such cargo at the ports or border stations. It is estimated that about N800 million is raked in daily into the slush pool. Intensified northernisation policy at Customs House Further investigations by this newspaper revealed that all key commands of Ali’s Customs are headed by officers of northern extraction.
They include the zonal coordinators in Lagos and Port Harcourt, area controllers of Port Harcourt 1 and 2 Commands, area controllers of Seme, Idiroko, Apapa, Tin Can, KLT, Western Marine, among others. Even in promotions and transfers, Ali has since jettisoned the federal character principle enshrined in Nigeria’s Constitution resulting in lopsided promotions with most states in the south without a single comptroller. For instance, while states like Lagos, Ebonyi, Enugua, Rivers, Bayelsa, Ondo, Cross River, Delta, Osun, Anambra and Ekiti have no comptroller, states like Sokoto and Kebbi, home to the Sultan of Sokoto boasts of seven. Similarly, Kano and Niger have eight. There are about 60 customs comptrollers nationwide. Meanwhile, there are widespread allegations that in the last promotion examination, papers were leaked in the assistant comptroller category where no fewer than 400 sat for the examination in one day and in batches. Before the exercise got to the third batch, the questions were already known by officers waiting for their batches. Customs react In a telephone interview last night, spokesman of the Nigerian Customs Service, Attah denied the allegations, stating that aggrieved importers who are being allegedly extorted by the CGC’s compliance team can make their reports formal and identify such officers for necessary disciplinary action. “In Customs under Hameed Ali, promotion is based purely on merit. I can say this without fear of contradiction. It is verifiable. You write your examination; you go for your interview and then the annual evaluation is done. It then becomes subject to vacancies available. For instance, if there are 40 vacancies, once the first 40 names are gotten, they draw the line. So there is no issue of controversy or maginalisation there. “On the compliance team, you must know that it is not a revenue collection team. It is an enforcement team. It is the third layer of our security. So, if smugglers are able to beat the first two layers including the FOUs, the job of the compliance team is to go after them to impound such smuggled goods. “What the importers do is unethical. A criminal will rationalise his criminality to justify his crime. The fact that one or two officers are involved in this extortion thing does not make the crime a general thing. But even at that, let the affected importers come forward and identify such officers, disciplinary measures will be immediately applied. “Do you know that smugglers buy handsets and motorcycles for boys at borders who help them to monitor the movement of customs team and aid their criminalities?”

Source:

http://nigerianpilot.com/hameed-alis-customs-stinks/

God help us

One chance!

Enjoy the guys

I'm sure nothing is going to be done about this information. That's why I'm tired of this country. I don't even have the strength to hate the people that voted this administration. I just feel pity for everyone involved

Instead of a centralised customs, we can have a regional structure. Each region headed by a native.

how won't it stink when the CG of Customs is in the forefront of campaigning for the pmb to the extent of being the chief host to commission the ultra modern BSO office in abuja.


pmb now effectively controls 2 of the big cash cows in Nigeria, he made himself Minister of Petroleum & put his trusted friend as CG Customs...


I hope when a president from the south appoints his brother as INEC chairman & his wife as CG Customs, some pmb miscreants won't scream blue murder...

the useless president has set a precedence, albeit a bad one...

800 million daily yet the watched Apapa road degenerate to what it is now.

May they use their ill gotten wealth to treat cancer

vcente:
I'm sure nothing is going to be done about this information. That's why I'm tired of this country. I don't even have the strength to hate the people that voted this administration. I just feel pity for everyone involved

do the needful