Customs officers celebrate removal of CGC Hameed Ali
Following Hameed Ali’s dismissal as the Comptroller General of Customs, there was hysterical celebration among the men and officers of the Nigeria Customs Service.
It would be recalled that President Ahmed Tinubu, Monday, approved the sack of the retired Colonel in a major shake-up in the military and paramilitary circle.
READ ALSO: General Wale Adeniyi becomes acting Comptroller General of Customs
He was replaced by DCG Wale Adeniyi.
The happy mood among the officers also seeped into the rank of the freight forwarders who equally heaved a sigh of relief at the unceremonious exit of a maximum ruler who ruled the customs as his fiefdom.
“He suffocated and polluted the benign atmosphere in the customs for eight years he reigned with his draconian laws and jackboot administration.
“His sack was a welcome development, good riddance to bad rubbish.
“It could have come much earlier” a jubilant officer who pleaded for anonymity, said.
It could be recalled that in 2015, former President Buhari brought Ali, a non-career Customs Officer Col(rtd) Ali, to head the service under the pretext of reforming and repositioning the Customs in a bid to raise the revenue profile of the organization.
“If he has any strand of moral fibre left in him, he should have left with his principal who imposed him on the service against the wish of career officers” an anonymous source noted.
“If I were him, I would have gone with my principal and not waited to be booted out the way he was eased out in an undignified manner,” another source said.
It was gathered that Ali received the news of his sack in far-away Brussels in Belgium where he was attending the World Customs Organization (WCO) conference.
“What an ignoble way to go out when he could have honourably resigned his position earlier than now when his principal left the office” a freight forwarder noted.
Most of the officers spoken to, who passionately pleaded for anonymity for fear of victimisation, declared that Ali’s eight years in Customs has done more harm to the collective psyche of the officers, and the general good of the service.
According to the respondents, apart from the regular promotions which officers benefitted as well as robust welfare packages and the enhanced revenue profile of the service, they claimed the service has not fared any better under the jackboot reign of the ex-soldier.
“He came to distort the auctioning system in the service which we use to dispose of abandoned cargos in a bid to stave off port congestion.
“But since he introduced his now moribund e – auctioning system, there has been a stockpile of abandoned cargos that had rotten away at the port.
“Go to the border stations across the country, seized cars as well as edible products like rice are there rotten.
“Go to the customs government warehouses, especially in Lagos, they are filled to the brim with seized goods and vehicles that are now rotten” a respondent lamented.
“The system he and his principal, Buhari, adopted to dispose of the edible products such as rice and vegetable oil to the Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs) camps, especially in the North East, is fraught with fraud as most of these items were diverted for personal use” another source alleged.
“Given his military background, the Federal Operations Units of the service, under him, became more vicious and cold-blooded in their operations as there were rampant cases of killing, maiming of innocent citizens and indiscriminate raiding of markets and warehouses across the country” another source observed.
“Under his leadership, corruption was endemic” a non-Customs source claimed.
The source, who is a high-ranking freight forwarder plying his trade in Lagos ports, said despite the so-called automation system in customs, extortion reigned supreme under the nose of Ali who they accused of providing the enabling environment that make the ignoble act fester.
Another source also pointed out the controversial Customs modernisation project, which was spearheaded by Ali’s regime, as the biggest and most monumental fraud in the history of the Customs.
“What are they modernising?, an angry customs source asked rhetorically.
“Ali met modernised customs service whose operations are automated.
“We started the automated process with the ASYCUDA platform which has since been upgraded to a hi-tech operational process.
“What was needed was a continuous improvement in the automation process and capacity building for officers to match the fast-paced technical innovation in the global Customs operations
“To then conceive such fraud as Customs Modernisation project which conceded the revenue generation aspect of customs to outsiders, is not only ingenuously fraudulent but a de-service to the country” an irate source declared.
Another source observed that the increased revenue profile that the service witnessed under Ali and erroneously counted in his favour was nothing other than the function of the high exchange rate.
“You know that for some years now, the exchange rate has gone into a spin, spiraling out of control due to the forlorn economic policies of Ali’s principal.
“This has indeed helped to boost the revenue collection of the service.
“This should not by any means be attributed to any ingenious policy change of Ali or the so-called plugging of revenue leakages as corruption under the sacked CGC assumed the hydra-headed status of a monster”
The general mood among the men and officers of the Customs is that of big relief at the sack of the maximum ruler in the customs service.
They all hailed the appointment of Wale Adeniyi whom they described as their own and believed will have more empathy than his sacked predecessor.
“Oga Adeniyi is a thoroughbred customs officer who rose through the rank and knows the internal workings of the service” a jubilant officer declared.
“Officers will be glad to work with him to build customs of our dream” another respondent stated.
“Affliction will not rise again. Never again shall we have the misfortune of having a non-career officer as our CG.
“Thank God for the new Customs Act which bars people like Ali who are non-customs officers to become the CGC,” a customs source said.
The maritime media also caught the bug of happiness over the sack of Ali.
“He has no regard for journalists. He treated the media with arrogance and disdain.
” He was the worst thing to have ever happened to the customs in its over 100 years of existence” an obviously elated maritime journalist declared.
“We have watched Wale Adeniyi, the new CG, grow through the rank and we hope his exceptionally sharp public relations acumen will not be blunted by the lure and lucre of his new office.” another maritime media practitioner declared.
