As the ex-military head of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) COL Hameed Ali (retd) prepares to retire alongside President Muhammadu Buhari come May 29, 2023, the Bola Ahmed Tinubu government will be faced with the daunting task of finding his replacement within the service, what with the two critical challenges of retaining the appointment in the North east or North west which helped him to clinch power, or favouring the appointment of a Yoruba of the South west, Tinubu’s own region
By Innocent Chukwu
Snippets from the Aso Rock seat of power indicate that the incumbent Comptroller General of Customs (CGC), Col Hameed Ali (retd) will be hanling over to the most senior Deputy Comptroller General (DCG) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on May 28, 2023 preparatory to the May29, 2023 handover of President Muhammadu Buhari to the incoming President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Abuja.
By May 29, 2023, Col Ali, whose tenure as the CGC is tagged the most contentious in the history of the century-old agency, will clock seven years and 10 months in office as a novel CGC. Buhari appointed Col Ali Customs CG in August 2015 after he booted out the late Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko Inde, a staunch supporter of then President Goodluck Jonathan.
Ali’s appointment into the plum job, which many saw as a reminiscent of the military era when the NCS was headed by military officers, had sparked off contention amongst various stakeholders of the paramilitary agency who contended with passion laden tones that Ali was not fit for the job due to lack of requisite knowledge and experience, while blaming Buhari for deploying nepotism to undermine professionalism and technical expertise in the Nigeria Customs.
Expectedly, Col Ali had wobbled endlessly at the outset of his appointment due to his lack of technical competence to administer the service effectively, but relied on the expertise of the senior officers at the management level who showed reluctance in putting him through. Battling with the wrangling in the service occasioned by the sheer duplicity of the senior officers at the time, Ali was to face stiff opposition from the Nigerian Senate then headed by Bukola Saraki as its President.
The Senate at the time had insisted that Ali, who had long retired from the military service, must adorn the full regalia of the customs uniform or resign his headship of the NCS. The Customs CG-Senate brouhaha which lasted many months was to result in the Senate’s swift move to amend a section of the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA) to insert a law which among others stipulates specifically that a non-career officer was disqualified from heading the NCS as its CGC.
If President Buhari had given assent to the parliamentary act, Ali would long have exited the service as its CGC. But Buhari had declined assent to the law. However, the Saraki-led Senate and Ali had maintained their cat and mouse relationship till the end of the Saraki-led Senate after which Ali, willy-nilly heaved a sigh of relief. Besides, the retirement of many senior management officers who had completed their years of service and detested the imposition of Ali on them did a lot to shore up the sitting CGC’s eroded confidence such that within the second tenure of Buhari, with the aid of other officers promoted to the management cadre, Ali has been able to pick the pieces of the service and pieced them together for a considerable stability.
In the past four years, Ali’s administration has been able to shore up customs revenue though adjusted to inflation and rise in dollar exchange to naira. Many analysts contend that the over two trillion naira revenue the service recorded in 2022 under the Ali leadership is far poorer than the one trillion naira the service collected in 2014 under Dikko before the advent of the Ali regime in 2015. Experts in customs revenue and affairs insist that customs revenue of 2014 may still be higher than its revenue of 2022 when adjusted to inflation and the fact that in 2022 one dollar exchanged for ₦740 as compared to the ₦210 per dollar in 2014.
Interestingly though, Col Ali’s leadership has ensured an even, prompt and regular promotion of officers based on merit as opposed to what obtained in the service prior to his appointment. At regular intervals, officers did write the promotion exam and those who performed credibly were promoted to the next rank. Ali also tried to bridge the gap between the outgoing senior officers and the incoming senior officers who will take over the leadership of the service at the middle level and management level. It was being expected that as the senior and management officers who joined the service in the 1990s would be retiring in droves, there may be leadership crisis in the service as the senior officers recruited in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 may not have attained the ranks to take over the mantle of leadership at all levels.
To Ali’s credit, these youthful senior officers have been made to receive rapid promotions and rapid trainings in leadership and technical aspects of the service, and thus they have been effectively equipped and are getting ready to assume the leadership of the service at all levels in the nearest future. Col Ali’s leadership has also ensured regular recruitment of desired numbers of officers and men into the service even though such recruitment appears lopsided and more favorable to certain regions of the country.
Staff welfare and training are other areas where the customs have fared well under Ali. Officers confess that Ali’s tenure has ensured trainings across board, as well as improvement in the general welfare of the officers. Such improvement in welfare has resulted in the discouragement inefficiency and other vices in the service, as well as instilling discipline in officers.
Regrettably, Col Ali’s long reign in customs enjoyed the culture of nepotic posting of senior officers. Early in the year 2023, Ali had tried to balance the posting of senior officers especially Area Controllers. However, the ostensible culture of nepotic postings right form 2015 never allowed the little adjustments in posting to be noticed in 2023 January.
Furthermore, Col Ali failed to rein in many excesses of top customs shots. The CGC appears weak in controlling some of the management officers who amassed stupendous wealth and lived and appeared larger than life. For example, some too powerful officers in Abuja held some juicy offices, commands and units hostage to an extent that such too powerful officers decided who occupied the juicy offices at any point in time. This happened under Ali’s watch without him batting an eyelid.
Last year, reports had appeared in various media that some customs top shots in control of influential offices had vehemently declined to retire after they had served out their statutory years of service. These top officers were alleged to have applied to the customs board through Col Ali to extend their stay in the service for more two years citing the inexperience of the young senior officers as the sole reason. The CGC was alleged to have been favorably disposed to such illicit application before the media began to beam searchlight on it.
Similarly, some senior and even management officers had engaged in the falsification of their age and service documents in order to stay put in the service and elongate their service years. The alleged practice under Ali resulted in a forced retirement of a Deputy Comptroller General (DCG) of Customs a few years back. Another inglorious event that rubbed mud on the service within the years under review was the compulsory retirement and dismissal of two Assistant Comptroller’s General of Customs (ACGs) respectively for even sundry allegations that might have passed unnoticed.
These numerous and other similar events contributed in heightening the tensions that greeted the Ali CGC tenure. But as Ali is said to have chosen to bow out honourably on May 28 amid the jubilation over the Tinubu and another APC Presidency, Tentacle gathered that the replacement of Col Ali by Tinubu has become one of the topics that are generating interest in Aso Rock Villa and other quarters. Some notable names of Ali’s potential successors will be profiled in subsequent edition.
Agency Without National Spokesperson
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Customs has been operating without an identified national Public Relations Officer (PRO) for nearly two months due to CGC Ali’s alleged disregard for the service’s public image and public goodwill, Tentacle can authoritatively reveal. The medium learnt that the reason Ali chose to run the service without caring a hoot about its public interface is not unconnected with some alleged clandestine politics associated with who is the most qualified and most competent officer to occupy the enviable and highly influential position.
Credible sources within the service hinted that the last National PRO of the Service, Timi Bomodi was promoted to the rank of Customs Comptroller and promptly redeployed to the Kiri-kiri Lighter Terminal Command, Lagos as Area Controller, but he delayed reporting at the command for two weeks to take up his new posting because Ali had requested that he should wait behind and conclude an assignment he was co-ordinating before his recent redeployment.
Also, competent sources disclosed that while leaving the office of the NPRO of Customs, Bomodi could not hand over to any officer under him because the CGC had failed to recommend any officer to be handed over to by Bomodi. A critical assessment of the prevailing situation by stakeholders prove that the CGC may have got himself wittingly or unwittingly entangled in the politics of who becomes the new customs NPRO.
Though some inside sources defended the CGC by insisting that he had been on transit for weeks, having returned from his journey, the NPRO office has remained vacant, while this medium learnt reliably that none of the officers in the Public Relations Unit of the service is competent to speak on behalf of the service officially because they have no official authorization from the CGC to act.
Tentacle gathered the CGC is still marking time because he believes the new generation of officers have not garnered enough experience to handle the job of NPRO, many argue that it is for such reason that Ali had tacitly given an approval nod to the request of some top shots who were pushing to remain in the service for two more years when they were supposed to go on retirement.
