Customs, officers and Hameed Ali

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By Foster Obi

Sometimes because of the cant, hypocrisy of governance or official gobbledegook, rumours reign supreme more than facts.

Some of these rumours create images that are laughable while others ferment. This regime by certain actions has encouraged such.

However for purposes of professionalism, this writing will stay within its mandate, avoiding hearsay except for one or two lighter ones to lighten boredom.

One of those lighter ones is that Hameed Ali, a retired Army Colonel with austere life was engaged in August 2015 as Comptroller-General (CG) of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) by President Buhari to send corrupt Custom officials that were growing in leaps and bounds to jail.

Then tongues were wagging that Buhari found the web of corruption created by the former CG, Dikko Inde too thick that he needed a stern man to “treat the fuck-up”, (permit the jargon), especially because as his Kinsman, he Buhari may not find the lever to deal with Dikko.

Naturally the Custom hierarchy quaked when Ali’s name was announced. Among Maritime journalists, there was this banter and press center joke that some Custom officials abandoned their jobs and fled while some were bidding their time, waiting for the right moment to resign.

Before his appointment, a few things about the retired soldier were in the public domain. Ali served as the military administrator of Kaduna State from August 1996 to August 1998 during the military regime of General Sani Abacha. In October 1997, there was a story that he sacked about 30,000 striking civil servants in the state, and detained 18 local government chairmen.

A journalist who reported the story in a local magazine, was allegedly arrested, severely beaten, then taken to the Government House and further tortured. Ali however denied the allegations.

There was this classic image of a terror monger and no nonsense he-man coming to cleanse a corrupt ridden Customs.

Again, he was cast in the mould of a tribal bigot and irredentist totally sold out to Northern hegemony and divine mandate to rule Nigeria. These were without proofs except that he was close to the President and campaigned for him.

So how has Ali fared in office. The Comptroller-General believed he has done well. In a NAN forum recently he praised his performance. He cited restructuring, reforms and revenue generation as key factors responsible for the impressive performance of the Customs.

He insists the three items were the mandates given to him by President Muhammadu Buhari on his appointment.

The NCS under his leadership was focusing on aligning its operation with international best practice through the mandate.

“We developed many standard operating procedures to achieve the mandate, all the officers became accustomed to restructuring.

“Training was no longer by chance but by schedule and a fundamental thing. No training, no promotion.

So we renovated our college, developed a curriculum for training of our officers. For us to do the best we must train and continue to train.’’

According to him, the approval of certain recommendations by the president also enhanced the remuneration and welfare of the organisation. Ali also said he was working towards providing office and residential accommodation for NCS workers especially those working in the borders.

If there’s something Custom officials will celebrate when Ali leaves office is being forced to leave austere lives against their will. The balloon party ended with him on board.

The CG himself has severally warned offices to leave within their means.

Ali told the rank and file few months after his appointment that he will sack any officer who cannot live within his or her remuneration and involve in illicit ways to acquire wealth.

He gave the warning while decorating some newly promoted officers of the service in Abuja.

“I know the service gives you enough that you can survive with, it is just a question of prudence”, he told them.

Ali has however made good this threat as some corrupt officers has been sacked under his regime.

While his administration has fared so well in the area of revenue generation and officer welfare, after closing up revenue leakages and penchant for corrupt practices, it has dark clouds encircling it.

One of this dent in his shinning armour was the allegedNCS poisnous rice gift to Nigerians ameliorate the biting effect of the coronavirus pandemic.

Nigerians had called on the President to sack the CG for donating 920,000 bags of contaminated rice for sharing to some states in the South West as part of the palliatives over the ravaging coronavirus pandemic.

Before the zombie like (permit the phrase) about turn after the presidential order, Ali had told the media that the imported rice was poisonous because before coming into the country, it must have spent a minimum of five years in the silos.

“A chemical must have been added to sustain its freshness and that chemical is harmful. Also, it has been re-bagged with a new date given as the production and expiry date, and that is what we consume here which causes diseases.”

Notwithstanding his position on imported rice, a superior order came from President Mohammadu Buhari during the pandemic to distribute the confiscated rice to Nigerians as relief items to cushion the effect of the lockdown on the people.

Ali immediately swung into action, amid worries by stakeholders that the seized rice might not be suitable for consumption, going by the poor handling of the seized items.

As weighty as the directive was, Ali immediately declared 46,000 metric tonnes (158 trailers) of rice to be shared to Nigerians through the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.

Despite the state of some of the rice, Ali assured that “only edible items certified fit for human consumption by the National Agency for Food Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), will be released to the public.”

These were rejected by some states.

Also, critiques of Ali’s style of leadership has argued that on the flimsy pretext of curbing smuggling activities, officers of the Nigeria Customs Service under his tenure are killing Nigerians with reckless abandon.

In a recent report Customs officers brutally shot some people dead during the 2021 Sallah festivities in Oyo State.

Before then, there has been a noticeable escalation in killings by Customs officers since Hameed Ali’s assumption of office in 2015.

A recent media report cited Iseyin, the fourth largest town in Oyo State, as the latest to bear the brunt of bloodletting by Customs personnel.

The story was that as the Islamic faithful celebrated the end of Ramadan, some NCS officers stormed the town in pursuit of suspected rice smugglers. Claiming that the smugglers mobilised against them, they opened fire indiscriminately on the crowd and at the end of the shootings, they had killed five persons.

In a properly functioning country, the killing of five citizens by operatives of a security agency would have triggered a national outcry, resignations, sackings and prosecutions.

In another report, the year 2020 ended with the dastardly killing of a young man on December 31 by the NCS officers chasing car smugglers in Oke-Odan, Yewa South Local Government Area of Ogun State.

A few days earlier in Ayetoro, Yewa, Customs officers had killed one man identified only as Sola, and injured four others in their bid to apprehend rice smugglers.

In October 2020, a stray bullet from Customs officers snuffed the life out of Moses Atanda, 50, in his shop in the same area. He left behind four wives and 18 children.

The argument was that Ali and his officers give the impression that recovering smuggled rice and cars in the hinterland is more valuable than human life.

In May 2016, six persons, including three children, were killed in Oke-Odan during an anti-smuggling operation. In February 2018, Abule-Egba, a densely populated suburb of Lagos, tasted the terror of Customs early in the morning. In a commando-like operation, officers chasing rice smugglers stormed the area, shooting sporadically. In the process, a bullet took the life of Toyeeb Olayiwola. Officers fired more rounds to disperse the crowd.

In another major incident in October 2019, Customs officers gunned down three students in Ihunbo, Ipokia LGA, while attempting to impound contraband vehicles.

There were many more of such atrocities.

Despite these dark clouds, it does not appear as if the Presidents confidence in the ability of the retired col. to deliver is shaken in anyway.

When Abba kyari, President Buhari’s chief of staff died, Ali was one of the possible replacements mentioned.

It remains to be seen if the so called reforms that Ali claims he has carried out will stand the test of time, when the curtain falls.

Foster Obi is the Editor, DFCnewsng.com

Picture: Customs CG, Hameed Ali

 

 

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