By Bayo Bernard
Two Years after receiving a Presidential Award for an unusual act of honesty, after rejecting a whopping $412,000 from some importers, who tried to import Tramadol, a banned drug into the country in November 2018, Assistant Comptroller General of Customs, ACG Bashir Abubakar has been disgraced out of the Nigerian Customs Service, NCS.
Recall that Abubakar, the Customs Area Controller of Apapa Customs Command at the time was immediately promoted to the ACG rank for the act and later presented with the Presidential Award by President Muhammadu Buhari in Aso Rock, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The order terminating relieving Abubakar of his duty was conveyed in a statement released on Wednesday, by the NCS which said the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed and the Customs Board decided to terminate the appointment of Abubakar for negligence and also approved the promotion of 2,634 other officers.
Also dismissed is another ACG, Aminu Dahiru for the act of serious misconduct, the Customs High Command said.
Abubakar’s sin, the magazine gathered is that he ordered his men to invade a warehouse in Katsina state belonging to President Muhammadu Buhari two months ago, and has been under investigation before he finally got the boot on Wednesday.
While the two ACGs were booted out of the NCS, some lucky officers got their promotion to the rank of ACG, according to the statement signed by the Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Customs Service, Deputy Comptroller Joseph Attah.
The newly promoted ACGs are Mohammed Boyi, Training and Coordination, Adewale Adeniyi, Commandant C&SC, Gwagwalada and Jack Ajoku, Strategic Research and Policy.
The new ACGs also include Olakunle Oyeleke, Doctrine, Development and Administration; and Emmanuel Edorhe, Zonal Coordinator, Zone ‘C’.
37 officers were promoted from Deputy Comptrollers to Comptrollers of Customs; 110 officers were promoted from Assistant Comptrollers of Customs to Deputy Comptrollers, while 138 officers were promoted from Chief Superintendent of Customs to Assistant Comptrollers.
Also 93 officers were promoted from Superintendent of Customs to Chief Superintendent of Customs; 93 officers were promoted from Deputy Superintendent of Customs to Superintendent of Customs, and 1,224 were promoted from Assistant Superintendent of Customs I to Deputy Superintendent of Customs.
Attah disclosed that 475 officers were promoted from Assistant Superintendent of Customs II to Assistant Superintendent of Customs I, while 464 were promoted from Inspector Customs to Assistant Superintendent of Customs II, while 205 Support staff has now been promoted to new ranks.
The promotion of the officers took effect from January1, 2019, the statement said.
Meanwhile, close watchers of the NCS say the manner ACG Abubakar was disgraced by his employers will send a wrong signals to other honest officers that honesty does not pay.
The Hameed Ali-led NCS, they insist, should have employed other punitive measures on the officer rather than sending him out of the Service.
