Senate versus Customs CG: How Ali landed in trouble

FURTHER details have emerged on the feud between the Senate and the Comptroller-General of Customs, Colonel Hameed Ali (retd), as the vice chairman of Senate Committee on Communication, Senator Olamilekan Adeola, on Sunday, said the travails of the Customs boss were linked to his disrespect for constituted authority.

The Senate had, last week, adopted a motion moved by Senator Dino Melaye, who alerted the Senate to a statement by Ali, which indicated that he was going ahead with the decision to collect duties from old vehicles despite its order to stop the process.

The red chamber, as a result summoned Ali to appear at the Senate session in Customs uniform with his Comptroller-General rank, but Ali had said he would not appear before the Senate in uniform.

Ali, while featuring on a live programme on Friday, had asked the Senate to focus on the performance of the Customs under his leadership, rather than on issues like uniform wearing.

“I will appear before the Senate because I have utmost respect for the nation’s legislature. But as regards uniform wearing or not, the answer is no, because I was not appointed Comptroller General to wear uniforms.

“Uniform wearing should not be the parameter for measuring performances. I am sorry to say this, but for those who have been given responsibility to conduct oversight functions on the Customs, what we expect from them is to look at what we are doing and let us know if we are on the right track or not,” Ali had said.

The Senate, however, said the decision to summon Ali to appear in Customs uniform was aimed at protecting organisational integrity and discipline within the ranks of the Service.

“Except in covert operations, an officer in these organisations operating without uniform could be taken to be performing illegal duty or worse, be taken as not representing the institution at all. The Comptroller-General is a rank that can only be worn on uniform and not on mufti,” Senator Adeola said.

The senator also said the Senate decided to address the concern among officers and men of the Customs Service, who he said were worried at the appointment of an “outsider” to head the organisation.

He said many officers of Customs would have a situation where appointment of the Comptroller General would be restricted to officers within the Nigerian Customs Service as it is done in the police and other agencies.

Adeola added that the National Assembly was being tempted to amend the Nigerian Customs Act, to restrict appointment of Comptroller-General to career officers.

“We respect the right of our president to appoint those he believes can do the job among the teeming millions of Nigerians but in recent times, the operations of the Nigerian Customs with midnight ‘break in’ and impoundments, killings leading to protests and demonstration by the citizenry requires that the National Assembly seeks clarifications from the leadership of Customs.

“We cannot allow the return of impunity and disregard of due process and rule of law. If Colonel Ali cannot respect the Customs service or is ashamed of wearing its uniform and rank of his position while appearing before peoples’ representatives, then he should honourably resign.

“We have had a Major-General Haladu Hanniya as head of FRSC wearing the agency’s uniform as well as a Major Danjuma Maigari wearing even the KAI uniform in Lagos State, all in a bid to promote agencies they lead. This is not the Abacha military era when a sole administrator was appointed to head the Nigerian Customs,” he said.

According to Senator Adeola, the travails of the Customs boss were also associated to his failure to respect the authority of the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun.

“The APC-led government of President Muhammadu Buhari was elected on the promise of change, adherence to rule of law and renunciation of impunity in any form. The story we hear daily is the arrogance and high-handedness of the CG and name dropping of the president.

“We had it on good authority of his reluctance to be answerable to the Minister of Finance as stipulated in the laws of the land. We that were elected cannot  look the other way while the people we represents are subjected to avoidable hardship orchestrated by an unelected appointee in a bid to cure the inefficiencies of the agency he leads. We are in a democracy,” he said.