Update: Nigeria Diasporas And Bribery Of Custom Officials At Lagos MMIA By Paul Omoruyi

i think a good cause has started, change will be effected. I think its commendable of the CG for even responding to the write-up. He rose to the position and knows the practices in place at MMIA, i think the secret recording and publishing to youtube is absolutely essential.

To eradicate this menance in society at large, we need to work simultaneously from the top-down as well as bottom-up.
If the head is sick, can the body be fine?
Engineer/Pastor Omoruyi, may you not go the way of people like Rueben Abati o, Amen.

Have you ever thought of the selection and hiring process of public officials? In a country with crippling unemployment, it is very difficult to get a job purely on merit and qualifications. Some of these men/women, boys/girls paid bribes to even get the JOB.
How much you are remmitting to your supervisor at the end of day/shift/week determines your chances of promotion and posting.
There are a lot more staff that have been sidelined to paper work and other sundry duties that does not afford them the chance to interact with travellers.
Those interacting with travellers are specifically chosen and posted to such duties only so they bring back money.

Why are those police recruits enduring such hardships at the barracks? For Love of Country?

I was elated on reading Paul Omoruyi's experience at the hand of Nigerian Customs officials. I remember my experience in 2011 when i visited Nigeria for a training program. They delayed me for a while but eventually let me go after i brought our my mini tape recorder and video camera, telling them i have all they are doing on tape. They pleaded for me to delete it or they will confiscate it. What the comptroller of Customs should do, if he is really sincere about eradicating corruption is to institute an undercover program, where any office found to take or ask for bribe is automatically fired. But of cos' this will be difficult as even the seniors officers encourage their subordinates to share proceeds from their bribery with them.

I wonder why I am wasting the 4 minutes it took me to read the article and reply.. But I will do anyway, it might be of interest to somebody.
What goes on in Nigeria is obvious, stating the obvious is not very inovative. The probable assistant of the controller that wrote the supposed reply thought to make it comical, why not the whole "nation is a joke".. Customs bribe is just at the bottom of the pile, right there with yellow fever bribe and police bribe.. This is not even the corruption people talk about whent they talk about Nigeria.
By the way.. what does it say, when a person uses Engr. as tiltle. Mr Omoruyi, you may be a qualified engineer, but it is not a title, not very creative email either. Just tells me that given the opprtunity you would do the same.. He without sin should cast the first stone!

Thanks for this article and your concern about Nigerian in the diaspora. I want you to know that those that are in authority in Nigera are not sincere about the issue 0f bribery at all areas of parastatals in our country. That of the airpoort is an eye sour, they embarass, they praise sing at times like the area boys to get money from the passengers. I have seen a custom officers asking a white guy for money at MMA.
Nigerian custom officers don't stop from asking passengers money at the airport they steal at the nations ports too. They steal from the containers, most of them are looking for quik money at all costs.
May the lord help our Nation. Nigeria stinks from head to toe.

With these, innocent passengers will be aware of those materials and not ripped off their hard earned resources at the airports.
Finally to Custom Comptroller general, you should have silent observers/auditors/inspectors to check mate your staff. If you don't have them, then there's something wrong with Customs. Sir, the experience of Dora Akunyili with NAFDAC can be borrowed here if you really want to tackle this ill wind that blows no one good and put the entire country in a bad light

My sincere appreciation to Engr. Omoruyi.
My advice to all is as simple as follow the instruction given and make complaints if you find that nothing is done within permissible legal framework.

For the size of the organisation, let us help the CGC with names and locations - no witch hunting please.

We seem to lack ability to follow instruction but we still criticise our fellow country men and women on the same issue.

We must learn to keep our luggage contents within legaly permissible boundaries.
'He who comes to the table of equity must come with clean hands'

It is obvious that this man is not serious. Does he not know that anyone can put on a name tag in that airport? Does he not know that a false name tag can be put on in that Customs Service? A man who spent at least more than half of his career life in customs service, rose to become the CG and is still searching for how to stop bribery and corruption in the same institution is no doubt in my mind unserious and I really do not have time for such nonentities.

Please, l want to know the list of prohibited items..... where can l read it...

Travelling pax shouldn't teach you your job Mr Comptroller General. Wearing name tags doesn't mean problem solved. If you are serious about solving this menace, you'll do it without even needing any external input especially Pax from whom experience should teach you don't have the time for stuff like filling questionnaires or complaint forms or writing you an email but bother about getting to their destinations safely. It didn't even take me up to 5 secs to come up with a cheap, simple and effective solution. Microphones installed under the tables where they work, CCTV (connection over existing wifi infrastructure at the airport), a pax/officers supervision room and a "No nonsense" supervising officer. In a country with up to 250 million people, there are millions of unemployed people/junior officers out there that will be delighted to do the job with what you offer them without resorting to begging, intimidating and threatening pax.

Instead of try to expose and humiliate those office why can we work with government to bring the knowledge we have gather in our various country of resident to help build the civil servant and make it a proud sector of the government. I will rather that the minister should gather ideals and information and suggestions on how to raise the image of the immigration official and customs so as they can be a responsible officials.
LETS CALL FOR A FORUM OF IDEALS FROM DIFFERENT CLASS OF PEOPLE AND SEE HOW THOSE IDEALS CAN BE IMPLEMENTED AND NOT SECRET RECORDING AND PUTTING IT ON YOUTUBE, THAT WILL NOT CHANGE ANYTHING.

Let’s also be reasonable and see facts some times. Those that we want to have and keep Nigeria image are those that feeling the pain of bad government and those that enjoying the vest wealth of the nation are going about with our young girls and spending that money that are supposed to be used to build the image of the country on those girls. So you want to tell the common ones that are trying to survive the hardship caused by those in Abuja to have good image? Please lets be reasonable sometimes.
In order to make the Nigeria civil servants to show good image, they need to have good incentives and be respected. Even those that call themselves Nigerians in the Diaspora are part of the problem of image in the MMA. Most of them don’t even respect the officials, they talk to them any how, can you disrespect any officer in your country of residency?

This is typically how these scumbags railroad well intentioned Nigerians like Engr Umoruyi into the corruption web. The second stage is to seek to partner with the Engr on how to 'move the Custom and Immigration service' forward; then get him to be their PR Manager in diaspora, in exchange for employing his 'candidate' into the Nigerian corruption baking hall of fame!!(or shame). The incompetent custom director should hide his face in shame for writing such a useless email and asking for signatures. Will you be surprised to find the signatories to this charade being unduely delayed, detained or harassed when they arrive or leave Nigeria? The entire Nigeria government apparatus is a syndicate that must be avoided if you have any integrity. The Controller-General's personal wealth alone can employ 10 Engr Omoruyi's as 'Special Assistant on Diaspora Matters to the Secretary of the Honourable Director of Customs.

Let’s face the fact, with the cost of living in Nigeria, which of the civil servants can boost of a good living with thief income. Because we live in abroad should not make us forget that the government has not done anything good for the civil servants in Nigeria for them to be proud as civil servants.
Mr peritoneal, take a study of the civil servants in your country of resident and compare it with that of your country Nigeria, do you see any difference. The civil servants are the back born of a country image, if the government could not provide image for the civil servant how do you expect them to have an image. Nigeria civil servant has become beggars just to be able to meet their family needs. They got children in schools, some in universities and they need to pay their accommodations and fed the family. How much do they receive as salary?

People like you encourage bribery! You obviously have not gone through pains from them, last month while coming through Lagos international airport, I was asked to pay 60,000 for my laugages, I just had 2bags which were 15kg each! And my laugages were Seized just because I did not comply to pay anything? Why should I give them anything for just 2laugages which was my right to have in the first place, why did they take the job if they did not know the pay? A custom officer at the airport once told me he was posted to ilorin, and because there was no action there he had to pay 800,000 to redeploy back to Lagos, the then said he intends to make his money back! That lagos is where the action is! The Customs in Lagos are just wicked the customs and all their families will pay for all the sadness they have caused!

Is Mr. Abdullahi Dikko Inde, serious with what he wrote? If he doesn't know how to solve such a simple problem why is he the Comptroller general of such an important govt agency, the customs? Hasnt experience told him that pax in flux have no time for such BS? Giving a 1970 Solution to a problem in 2013 :complaint box, questionnaires and initiating what he calls serious reforms which normally should be basic to those officers. When all he needs to do to solve this simple problem is 1)First issue a warning that this behavior will no longer be tolerated. 2)Install microphones under the tables where these officers operate to pick up conversations and CCTV cameras around the area to capture the screening process both for pax behavioral monitoring and for officer supervision 3)Appoint a thorough ,no nonsense supervising officer sit in an office, observing and listening to the officers. 3) The first 3 that are caught in the act should be dismissed. The other's will catch the gist. Simple.

Mr Comptroller General,tell the world that you did not know about the rot going on at Nigeria Airports by your Agency.Why did it take an expose to get a reaction from you.Its a shame what traveling Nigerians have to go through when entering or exiting their own country.It will even be a bigger shame if after responding to the scandal you could not effect some changes.To say that the thieves in custom uniforms are not damaging Nigeria's image is an understatement.What are so many "Custom officers" doing at the airport if not to shake down traveling Nigerians.Next step is to embarrass this whole Agency via Youtube and other social media.

I want to thank Engineer Omoruyi for his good work in bringing this problem into the open. I am sure most Nigerians living abroad must have at one time or the other experienced what he complained about.
I very much agree with the resolutions, particularly the third one that threatens to expose these thieves by recording their demands and posting such on social media like YouTube. I believe this is likely to work, provided the rats and cockroaches at the Airports do not invent their Machiavellian schemes to make sure such threats do not work (like asking everyone to shut their smart phones, for example).

@Omoruyi, it seems u're gullible. So u really beleive that Mr Dikko didn't know that his officers engage in intimading Nigerians at the airports? The bribes get to him!? His email to u doesn't even sound convincing! Aaahhh!!! He is very incompitent and unserious. Are we, the innocent Nigerians using the airports, to blame for his officers corrupt practices? Is he hearing this for the first time? By the way, where is a list of those restricted food and other items? I weep for this nation.

This is good news but what about the immigration officers as well, they need to be checked. They request for $100 from first time travelers like it's their right, they ask you all sort of irrelevant questions just to waste your time. They don't care about your feelings, they feel once you can afford to travel then it's their right to have a cut out of what you have. Everyone at the airport is trying to rip you, from those working with the airline to NDLEA.

What of the Lagos Ports? Do you know that all Customs at appapa poer are the real Port Rats.Infact all custom personnels are thieves.If you see how they loot containers during inspections,you will pity Nigeria.In fact any custom office I see no matter his rank,his wealth,including the custom general himself is a thief.All of them are coursed.Their families are coursed from generation to generation.They looth peoples hard earned goods.I am saying this because, God will hear my prayer and punish thse customs and their families. They connive with Agent to rob you your goods.Their wealth is real blood money.

You should walk a mile in the shoes of these poor customs officers and try to live on the peanuts they get each month when they do get it, then we can have a discussion about morality. I have no problem with the customs officers at the airports. The real deal are the fat cats in Abuja with questionable wealth who expect the lower ranking officers to remain saintly and portray a good Nigerian image. If we want Nigeria's image to improve, let's stop the hypocrisy and begin cleaning up from the very top. As for me, I will continue to give them money as long as I know they use it for themselves and families and not "deliver" proceeds to the overfed ogas upstairs.