IF YOU ARE WORTH N9 BILLION, WOULD YOU STILL REMAIN IN THE CUSTOMS AS A STAFF?

IF YOU ARE WORTH N9 BILLION, WOULD YOU STILL REMAIN IN THE CUSTOMS AS A STAFF?

The craze for juicy appointments, especially at the commands’ level remains one of the driving factors that often tears the top echelon of the customs service apart. Agreed that once an officer hits the peak of his career at the comptroller’s rank, he would want to be redeployed to a grade ‘A’ command where it is assumed that things happen with the speed of light and one can become rich overnight.

And so, this anxiety to clinch the best posting rears it’s ugly head once and any time a new set of officers are elevated to the most cherished rank of a full Comptroller.

Breeding all sorts of antics and bad blood, some officers will release all they have in their arsenals to run colleagues down, painting them black, even with no iota of evidence. The instant case where few officers have been subjected to irredeemable ridicule comes to mind.

Accusations of billions of naira bribery looms large every day, and you wonder if just a billion naira can be picked off the shelf by any Nigerian worker whether as a product of bribery or through any gainful employment

What looks like an economic romance between smugglers and some officers has always made headlines in recent times and you wonder if ‘one can marry his enemy’
In the service , petitions are common place practice and huge number of them are politically motivated and therefore, self serving.

And so when few ‘friends ‘woke up from the wrong side of the bed, plotting to harm one of their own, the reasons, to an insider, like us ,can not be far fetched; it is either you want him dislodged from his position so that you can take his place, or you serve as a spoiler-in-chief. This is most times, the situation in the service especially when a new Comptroller General mounts the dais.

Having covered the maritime industry (customs inclusive) for upwards of thirty years, my experience can not fail me, and it has revealed instances of diabolical practices by some in pursuit of their personal ambition, going to any length possible to actualize their desires.

So, when few guys within decided to cook up a petition alleging that a colleague of theirs warehoused a whopping N9 billion, you begin to wonder their intent and where they are headed with their thoughts. Just a product of the pull him down syndrome. And I know that the Comptroller General is wary of all such sycophantic elements.

Wait a minute; Any public servant, nay Nigerian, can be invited by the DSS, the EFCC, the police as well as any security agency to come clear some issues.

You can come out unscathed if nothing incriminating is found against you or you become their guest for long within which period, you might be asked to stand down from your current position or discharged.
To the unwary, we have now the avalanche of officers elevated to the rank of a full Comptroller–about 52 of them.

Some of them have 2 or 3 months to hit the compulsory 60 years of age or 35 years in service to retire, coupled with more than same number of Comptrollers before this current mix.

And so, stiff competition is it, for very few commands or even the ‘juicy’ ones.
Inside the service, there are so much lobbying for such few positions which is chief, amongst the reasons spurious allegations have been renting the air of late, but to a decerning mind, they are misplaced, and that’s why the so-called multi billion naira allegations have been seen and proved to be unfounded and responding to it by relevant agencies of government will look like giving vent to the fake news.

There are officers, especially on the anti-smuggling front, that no smuggler can compromise- and Compt Kolade is one of them. Tested and trusted, he has several recognitions from within and outside the service, including from former Comptrollers General to prove his mettle as uncompromising.

Compt Kolade’s feats at the Federal Operations Unit in Zone C’ Owerri, are unprecedented and unimpeachable. It will therefore, remain a smokescreen if naysayers (bad belle people) think they can pull him down.

You don’t need any prophet to tell anyone that the various attacks online on the likes of Ejibunu, kolade and some front runners in the anti smuggling war across the country are attempts to damage the current management of the service which has lived to its billing with regard to the mandates given to it by president Bola Tinubu.

Other than this primitive type of distractions, Nigerians who are patriotic should find a better channel to put across their suggestions to the Comptroller General who has continued to preach partnership, collaboration and synergy.
The service should also look inwards to identify these fifth columnists dragging the image of the agency.

The current Customs helmsman, Adewale Adeniyi, MFR is not new to this kind of witch hunting, neither can he be swayed by it, as he knows his officers who can deliver.
He is a product of the system, having seen it all.