President Buhari & his deliberate flaws

BY EWA OKPO

Once again, the Nigeria masses have gone amok with fusillades of opinions in support and against the president as usual and this time it’s not just on account of the ethnic dominance typical of his appointments but the seeming “capacity grafting” in one of them. Thus The Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service.

President Muhammadu Buhari on the 27th August 2015 appointed one Alh. Hammed Ibrahim Ali as Comptroller General of The Nigeria Customs Service (NSC). Interestingly, this new CG (born January 15, 1955) is a retired Nigeria Army Colonel. This is what stirs the nation in whose preponderant views it is clearly a puerile divertissement from his promise to stick to professionalism and merits. 

What is probably not readily available to the uninitiated minds amongst members of the public is the fact that this close consort of His Excellency was one of those core supporters of Major General Muhammadu Buhari in his bid to run for president who blatantly challenged President Olusegun Obasanjo in June 2006 as Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum, a northern lobbying group, saying that the North would regain the presidency in 2007. The import of this is that His Excellency seems to be sacrificing professionalism on the altar of ethnic and political settlements. 

More so, what is rather most disturbing is the fact that Col. Ali served as Military Administrator of Kaduna State, Nigeria (August 1996 - August 1998) during the military regime of General Sani Abacha with a very bad human rights record. As governor, in October 1997, he sacked about 30,000 civil servants in Kaduna State for participating in labour action and detained 18 local government chairmen. 

It is also reported that a journalist who reported on the sacking was allegedly arrested, severely beaten and further tortured at the Government House. The story published in Tempo Magazine was entitled “Goodbye Justice”. But this was subsequently discredited as false - typical machinations of the military mantra! What the foregoing portends does goes without saying, the welfare of men and women of Nigeria Customs Service is in a precarious vaticination and the lives, properties and goods of those crossing our borders cannot boast of otherwise proclivities. Hence, another international crisis looms when we cannot afford to add a pebble to our mountains of Boko-Haram, Corruption and Political and Economic instability.

Albeit, it is pertinent to note here that the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) established over a century ago is an independent agency under the supervisory oversight of the Nigeria Ministry of Finance and recognized as a para-military organisation. It is responsible for the collection of customs revenue and anti-smuggling efforts which means combating smugglers is one thing but revenue collection is another kettle of fish perse for a soldier. One would, therefore, recall that the immediate past Comproller General, Abdullahi Dikko Inde is an economist and a master’s degree holder in finance who rose through the ranks of the NCS since entering it at superintendent level in 1988 to become the organization’s premier officer. He was unlike the new boss known as “Mr Welfare” due to his “distaste” for injustice and reputation for giving junior officers their due, regardless of how small a contribution they have made. Dikko himself actually took over from a CG who was himself also a career custom officer. This practice in appointing serving officers to command the affairs of the organization stemmed from the need to promote professionalism in stewardship in the organization and to correct its chequered antecedents as well as securing service patriotism with promotion incentives among the officers to the ultimate rank.

Accordingly, NCS Today is supposed to be run by the Comptroller General who oversees the work of five Deputy Comptroller Generals in the following departments:
Corporate Support Services;
Tariff & Trade;
Enforcement, Investigation, and Inspection;
Modernization, Research and Economic Relations; And
Human Resource Development.

The question now is how does a man who has never served in any capacity in this organization lead it in this its latter modernization? Whatever happened to “chain of loyalty”? Will this not send a wrong message down the ranks discouraging the hopes that every hard working officer has equal chance of rising to the top? Will they not be tempted to second guess their patriotism hitherto? How do career customs officers report loyally to a career soldier? When did the military start wedding the para-military in hot romance? How does one solve corruption and economy issues by creating avoidable loopholes for criminals to take advantage of. Those pillaging our economy are smarter than the gendarme supremacy policy. Perhaps, it would be incontrovertible to contend that this appointment by Mr. President may verily ditch the organization into a crestfallen quagmire of irrectitude except if by some preternatural prestidigitation it is salvaged - Dis Aliter Visum. 

The legitimacy of this presentiment is corollary predicated on the fact that something analogous to this actually happened in 1985 under Gen. Buhari’s regime as the Military Head of State of Nigeria where the establishment was moved from under the governance of the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and renamed the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Services Board with the functioning of the unit also decentralized so that each state was run by area controllers. The end result cannot be far fetched. In fact, it was so overwhelming that by 1992, it was returned to the Ministry of Finance and recognized as a para-military organisation by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida the then Military President of Nigeria following the report and recommendations of a review committee set up to investigate the challenges of the establishment and research possible solutions thereof. 

So far so good, the NCS under the six years leadership of Abdullahi Dikko Inde as the service’s comptroller general and vice-chairman of the board has recorded an all time best practice performance in all ramifications so much so that one would expect its new Comptroller General and Board Vice Chairman to be a man of equal shoe size if not bigger but Alas, What have we? A burn again dictator cum another experimental public servant! By the way, since the Nigeria Customs Service is under the supervision of the ministry of finance with the minister as its Board Chairman who then is our Finance Minister and Board Chairman?

Perhaps, it is true that President Buhari is penciling the self acclaimed “mitochondria” of “The Uncommon Transformation” in Akwa Ibom State - Obong Umana Okon Umana to be our Honorable Minister of Finance.

Barr. Ewa Okpo E.
LLB, BL, DRS, C.Th.
Humanity Chambers.
Nigeria.