It’s bad enough for ordinary Nigerians to identify fissures in their personal quality of life and widespread dysfunction in the public management of their resources. It is much more painful – and always unhelpful – for such lack of awareness to be documented in a discredited report by unknowledgeable and dishonest people. Don’t get me wrong, Sahara Reporters website is where I go for the news that does not appear in the mainstream media. So I can comfortably identify myself as its regular browser. But one story makes me shudder, and causes me to rejoin with the website before the trend of thought of well-meaning people become disjointed. Moreso, the same week that the report appeared on the website a similar one appeared in my favourite paper, Leadership Sunday.
I am referring, of course, to your story on the kingpins of smuggling in Nigeria, and particularly, the one on the succession to the office of Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service in the Leadership Newspaper of Sunday July 12. Both took a wild swing at Dikko Abdulllahi, one of our most erudite officers, a chartered accountant and by far the most transparent customs officers of our time. The two articles also shielded or celebrated so many others in the service who are scheming to occupy the office of Comptroller General of the Customs Service, as Bernard-Shaw Nwadialo departs the scene, in spite of their heaps of infractions.
But let us return to the subject matter of the reports which invoked the names of the president’s wife and his bosom friend. There is no doubt the matter came up because of people who are trying to impose mediocrity over merit in the service. But they miss a very important point. How can the first lady be involved in smuggling when schedule two of the nation’s tariffs regulation exempts the first family from paying custom duty? Are you the ones that are being misled or are your sponsors further exposing their ineptitude?
But something else further exposed the prejudices in the two identical articles. For no reason at all, the subject of the articles veered away to focus on Dikko Abdullahi, pointing out that he has received rapid prominence in the Nigerian customs since Yar’adua came to office. That he was promoted from comptroller to assistant comptroller general expeditiously. That Dikko, who is married to a "sister" of Hajia Turai Yar’adua, is being groomed to take over as comptroller general of the Nigerian Customs. The source revealed that several competent and senior hands were prematurely retired from the Customs to pave way for Dikko Abdullahi’s ascension to the CG position. Abdullahi, also said to be Yar’adua’s distant cousin, hails from Musawa local government area of Katsina State. The article went on to detail his property and residence in Abuja and one wonders what all that has to do with probity and accountability.
While many of these assertions are false, those that are true can be easily explained. On the filial ground it is important that I quickly admit that Dikko is married to none other than his own cousin and no one else’s cousin. Yes Dikko Abdullahi’s promotion was an accelerated one, but accelerated promotions are nothing new. What about Shehu Musa Yaradua, Nuhu Ribadu, Tafa Balogun, Okiro, and in the Customs service, of course Mustapha who rose from Comptroller to Comptroller General and Buba Gyang from ACG to substantive CG? And for the benefit of doubt, Umaru Musa Yaradua never promoted Dikko Abdullahi, Obasanjo did and for good reason.
According to a memorandum submitted to the House Committee on Customs by Amobi Nzelu Esq with regards to the upliftment needed in the service, in 2004 “the list of fifteen officers recommended for prpomotion are of relatively junior rank but have been identified as tested, competent, and highly effective” and were therefore forwarded for immediate promotion. It becomes therefore safe to say without fear of contradiction and with all responsibility that Dikko’s promotion was based on merit and nothing else.
As an astute and dedicated officer, Dikko while at Seme Border was given a target of N2.3billion as collectibles by the customs at the border. But Dikko and his men exceeded the target and raked in a whopping N3.7billion.
This unprecedented act was followed by an even more serious assignment where the responsibilities of six positions were reduced to one and Dikko was assigned to handle the office as Controller of Investigations. This assignment was executed meritoriously, apart from the recovery of over-a-billion-Naira which Dikko spearheaded and achieved. The question here therefore is does Dikko deserve his accelerated promotion or not? The other question is, does Dikko fall among the group of stereotypical customs officers that patriotic people like those in Sahara Reporters and Leadership on Sunday should disparage?
It is a well-known fact in our service that any officer who spends more than four years on a rank is entitled to an automatic promotion to the next, unless he was involved in some untoward activity, and an officer who performs beyond expectation as Dikko did through the years deserves even more. Dikko was promoted along with fifteen others, including ACG Makarfi, ACG Atte and ACG Ofem to cite just a few examples. In fact one among them went from Assistant Controller to Assistant Comptroller General.
Dikko Abdullahi on his part did not just get accelerated promotions, he also won seventeen merit awards, including Skytimes Awards for Maritime Excellence in four categories among them Customs Revenue Strategixt Award, Customs Comptroller of the Year; Africa Icon of Our Generation Award 2008; Leadership Gold award for Excellence; Leaders of Integrity Merit Award 2008; Great African Patriotic Achievers Award; Merit Award for Excellence in Public Service and capped all of them up with a National Merit Award when he was awarded the MFR by the Federal Government.
Looking at the article in Leadership Sunday, one notices a celebration of misdemeanor. Most of the people tipped along with Dikko for the office of CG by the newspaper were moral Lilliputians. One of them, for example, was born in 1948, never obtained a university degree, has no known records of joining the service because he might have been dismissed from his former work place at the Nigeria Airways. The officer presided over the most reckless administration at the Lily Pond in Ijora where his case remains pending with the law enforcement agencies. The same officer presided over the scandal of the imported arms which were used in the Jos crisis, which is also still being investigated. Such behavior, which particularly smears the service have trailed the officer through Port Harcourt where his tenure was indicted for inappropriate auctions.
The other one was accused of fraud involving the Chisco Motors auctions and should have been retired or dismissed but for the intervention of his kinsmen. In Katsina, the officer was summarily redeployed as a result of the crisis that pitched customs officers against smugglers. Others are still battling with cases before the ICPC and other financial and related crimes agencies.
But of course, I am not stating that Dikko is the be-all of the Customs Service. There are other capable officers like ACG Atte, Anyanaka and Othman who have served their units meritoriously and who could perform creditably with the interest of the nation guiding their decisions. But these people are neither campaigning in the media nor destroying the hard earned reputations of others. Besides, like Dikko they do have enough time spans to serve a full term, unlike the two immediate past CGs whose tenures were brief from the onset and which as experience has shown are recipes for loss of focus. It is for this reason I route for the Bello Custom Reform Committee’s recommendations that the best CG can only emerge from the ranks of the serving ACGs like Dikko Abdullahi, the only chartered accountant in the team, who also possess the track record to serve this country well and do this nation proud.
Bello Muhammed Who Writes-in from Sokoto retired from the Customs in 1983
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