The Senator representing Osun East Senatorial District at the National Assembly, Francis Fadahunsi has raised the alarm that the Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, has become the conquered territory of the Nigerian Army.
Fadahunsi, who is the Deputy Chairman of the Senate Committee on Customs, also declared the ongoing recruitment exercise and training to be conducted by the NCS for the new recruit as a fraud.
The lawmaker, a retired Assistant Comptroller General of Customs, who has variously called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the Comptroller General of Customs, Hammed Ali and replace him with a thorough bread professional, in a statement signed by him on Friday, said the current situation at the NCS has become worrisome, affecting the morale of officers and men of the service and consequently affecting their productivity and ability to truly generate revenue for the economic benefit of the country.
The Senator said the deployment of an army general, Kebbi born Brigadier General Buhari as the Principal Staff Officer (PSO) to CG Ali, is an anomaly that has been taken too far.
“General Buhari has been working with Ali as PSO for the past four and a half years. This is to the detriment of professional Customs officers. This same army general is alleged to have taken over the function of the posting committee, as he now handles exclusively the posting of Comptrollers, Assistant Comptrollers and Deputy Comptrollers.
“It is disheartening that since Ali became the CG, professionals in the service have been rendered useless and have been dealt several emotional and psychological blows that have no doubt affected their productivity”, the lawmaker said.
Affirmed that he does not have any personal issue with Ali but only concerned with the service and how it can effectively carry out its revenue collection duties for the economic benefit of the country.
He called on President Muhammadu Buhari to rescue the service and also ask the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, why a General will be PSO to a retired Colonel who is on appointment with the Customs service.
“Mr President must disabuse the minds of Nigerians who now see the Customs as an annex of the Nigerian Army. The Senate Committee Chairman on Customs is a retired Army Major, the Comptroller Genaral is a retired Colonel and a serving General is the Principal Staff Officer”, he said.
Speaking on the ongoing recruitment into the NCS, has continued to generate interest the Senator branded the exercise a fraud, declaring that Ali is being economical with the truth on the recruitment into the service and should not be trusted.
Fadahunsi, who recently raised the alarm that the Customs boss is using N1.6 billion for the recruitment of just 3,200 new officers, picked holes in the clarification by the NCS that the money in question was meant for not just recruitment but also the six months training of those to be recruited.
The Osun East lawmaker, in his statement, said the only reason CG Ali can give for outsourcing the recruitment and training of personnel to outsiders is to find jobs for the boys.
He said: “Ali lied to the nation and should not be trusted by anybody. The reason is that Customs has full fledged training facilities. There is one in Ikeja, Lagos, with full accommodation and is fully automated.
“There is also another advanced training college in Karu, built to university standard for senior officers. It is headed by a Deputy Comptroller General, a well trained officer, while the one in Ikeja is headed by a Comptroller.
“These facilities are recognised by the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and they are acknowledged as centres of excellence.
“Customs also has the best training school in Kano for junior officers. These schools are well staffed and they have excellent facilities. The junior staff training school can accommodate a lot and is headed by a Comptroller. The schools also have canteens that can cater for the feeding of these trainees.”
Fadahunsi also disclosed that all the training schools have their annual budgets for training, querying why Ali outsourced the recruitment and training.
“The question now is why will anyone rightly think of outsourcing the training of Customs officers if not because of greed.”
