- We’ll sack more – Ali
The reasons behind the recent approval of the sacking of about 232 senior officers of the Nigeria Customs Service by the Comptroller General, retired Col. Hameed Ali, have now become clearer.
A competent source disclosed to our correspondent that the affected customs officers were caught in the web of “huge” academic qualification scandal and acute professional misconducts.
According to a top official of the customs, “The Code of Conduct Bureau report on some of them who filled the assets declaration form, nailed them. They told lies in the form under oath, apart from parading fake certificates.
In fact, it is disheartening,” On assumption of office in 2015, the Customs boss, Ali, had directed all senior personnel of the NCS to declare their assets through the Code of Conduct Bureau.
The exercise took off across all Customs formation throughout the country, despite plans by some officials with shoddy academic records and questionable wealth to frustrate it. It was gathered that 5,123 senior personnel of the service went through the exercise between January and April 2016.
“They have all submitted their completed CCB form to the bureau for verification and confirmation of claims made in the forms,” said a senior Customs officer.
The source at the Customs Headquarters in Abuja added that out of the over 10,000 senior officers, who claimed to be graduates of various universities and flaunted degree certificates, “actually are parading forged university degrees and had used same to get promotion to various senior officer’s rank like Assistant Controller of Customs and Deputy Controller of Customs.”
The most affected officers, it was learnt, were those who decided to present forged certificates from the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and the Lagos State University (LASU), respectively.
“The moment the verification committee wrote the institutions, they immediately responded and disclaimed 15 of such officers,” the source said. It was further gathered that other personnel affected by the gale of sack were those involved in recent incident of reckless use of firearms by Customs operatives, which was seriously frowned upon by the NCS comptroller general.
Ali was said to have insisted that the heads of such units where the personnel that recklessly terminated the lives of innocent Nigerians, must leave the service, while the trigger-happy operative was not only sacked, but also made to face prosecution in the court of law.
