FG gazette raises questions over Ali’s appointment as Customs’ comptroller-general
Did President Muhammadu Buhari make a procedural mistake in appointing Hameed Ali, a retired colonel, as the comptroller-general (CG) of Nigeria Customs Service?
According to section 3.11:1 of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Official Gazette No 24 Vol. 89 of 25th March 2002, the choice of the comptroller-general of customs shall be by “appointment of a suitable Deputy Comptroller-General of Customs (General Duty)”.
This guideline is on page 226 of the gazette — which is an administrative publication of established procedures, orders and regulations.
A strict interpretation of the gazette would suggest that Ali was not qualified for the CG position since he was neither a customs officer nor a deputy comptroller-general.
But TheCable understands that in his desire to clean up customs, considered to be one of the most corrupt government agencies, Buhari could not find an insider to trust and decided to bring in Ali, who is known for his modesty and integrity.
When Abdullahi Diko Inde recently retired as the CG, one of his six deputies was expected to be appointed as his replacement.
“Security reports on the current deputy comptroller-generals were not favourable in any sense,” an associate of the president told TheCable on Monday.
“It became very clear to the president that he needed an outsider to thoroughly clean up the mess. Nigerians do not have any trust in the customs service, and this is one of the biggest revenue-collecting agencies for the federation.”
The precedents
Before arriving at the choice of Ali, Buhari had sought legal advice from insiders in his government, and he was given examples of how non-career customs officers headed the service in the past.
Shehu Musa, a career civil servant, was appointed director of the department of customs and excise in 1975 to reform the structure inherited from the colonial government. Musa later served as the secretary to the federal government in the second republic.
Haliru Bello Mohammed, a veterinary doctor, was in the ministry of internal affairs when he was seconded to customs as a director in 1989 by the government of Ibrahim Babangida. At the time, customs, immigrations and prisons were one unit under the internal affairs ministry.
In 1990, after the three services were unbundled, Mohammed was appointed the first CG of customs. He later became minister and acting chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the fourth republic.
In 1993, a serving soldier, Samuel Ango, then a brigadier-general, was appointed sole administrator of the service by the Sani Abacha administration.
Ango held the position until February 1999 when the Abdulsalami Abubakar government appointed Aliyu Ahmed Mustapha as the comptroller-general.
However, these instances were long before President Olusegun Obasanjo issued the administrative order in 2002 which was gazetted, thereby giving it a procedural authority.
Falana: A gazette is not a law
Legal Loophole?
The confusion appears to have been created by the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA) which does not say anything on the appointment of the CG. It only specifies appointments into the board.
Femi Falana, constitutional lawyer and a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), told TheCable that the gazette does not have the force of law and section 5 of the 1999 constitution empowers the president to make the appointment from outside the service.
“For statutory bodies that the law does not clearly define how appointments are made, the president is fully protected by the 1999 constitution on how he can make the appointments,” he said.
According to him, the gazette in question is “a scheme of service” which regulates the internal procedures of promotion within the customs structure.
“What that gazette is saying in effect is that you cannot pick any customs officer below the rank of deputy comptroller-general as the CG. It is an internal procedure. Ali was picked from the outside so the rule does not apply to him. The president is protected by section 5(1)(a) of the constitution which allows him to appoint anybody to help him exercise his executive powers,” he said.
The section says: “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the executive powers of the Federation shall be vested in the President and may subject as aforesaid and to the provisions of any law made by the National Assembly, be exercised by him either directly or through the Vice-President and Ministers of the Government of the Federation or officers in the public service of the Federation.”
“By his appointment, Ali is now an officer of the public service of the federation overseeing the customs service on behalf of the president. No law has been broken,” Falana said.
He further cited section 171(1) of the constitution which says the power “to appoint persons to hold or act in the offices to which this section applies and to remove persons so appointed from any such office shall vest in the President… (d) Permanent Secretary in any Ministry or Head of any Extra-Ministerial Department of the Government of the Federation howsoever designated”.
“The customs is an extra-ministerial department of government,” Falana pointed out.
None of the members of Inde’s team passed security screening, sources say
Sole administrator?
However, a retired senior civil servant, who declined being named, told TheCable that Buhari should have appointed Ali the sole administrator of customs and not comptroller-general because he is not a career customs office.
“He can appoint Ali into the board and then make him sole administrator since he has a specific duty of cleaning up the place. The comptroller-general is a career position that is done from within the service. In the case of Haliru Mohammed, he was already a director of the service. It was from there he was made CG by Babangida in 1990,” he explained.
“Even under the military, they did not call an outsider comptroller-general. Ango was called sole administrator because he was a military man not a career customs man. When Mamman Kotangora was appointed to head ABU Zaria, he was not called vice chancellor. He was called sole administrator. You cannot appoint a VC from outside the university system.”
He also said having attained the age of 60, Ali could not be named comptroller-general as this is unknown to all the rules related to the administration of customs.
“You retire from service when you have either served for 35 years or you are 60 years old, depending on which comes first. Ali is already 60 and cannot be called CG, but he can be sole administrator and he can still carry out the reforms. As a sole administrator, that is a political appointment not restricted by age,” he said.
However, Falana does not support this position.
“We are no longer under military rule, so the issue of naming Ali as the sole administrator does not arise. This is a political appointment, and that means the retirement age does not apply to him,” he said.
Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman, told TheCable that no law has been broken.
No law has been broken.Chikena
And that is because your “god” Buhari can do no wrong, Chikena
Who eventually happens to be your ” elected” president
I like that! Hahahaha
Having read the two schools of thought I believe that Nigeria must move on. Nigeria is not in a normal situation, its in a mess which must be cleaned. Does it really matter what Mr. Ali is called, CG or Sole administrator. What matters is getting a man of honor who will clean up the customs. The statement that Mr. President could not trust the deputy CG says it all. The customs is rotten from the head to toe hence those in line of leadership in the customs cannot perform because they are all birds of the same feathers- corrupt men in customs uniform.Many of us in this forum do not have any experience of what is going on in the customs hence some are calling for the law to be followed and so on. Law is made by man and for man’s good purposes, if it does not suit the prevailing circumstance for man’s good purpose change it.My experience at the hands of the customs men at Nigerian wharf in Lagos cannot be described in this forum hence I support Mr. President to clean up the customs and retire all the deputies CG because they will be an abstacle to reforms.
The President was elected based on existing political procedures in the nation. It is most improper for him to be making appointments outside existing civil service procedures.
He does not follow civil service procedures nor Federal Character as provided by the constitution. Is he inventing his own rules? What is the template being applied in these appointments? Let us be guided by the fact that “absolute power, corrupts absolutely”.
I support one hundred percent the views expressed.Allowing any of the DCG to assume leadership will be business as usual.
NO LAW IS BROKENED, THE CONSTITUTIONAL REQUQREMENTS SUPERSIDE GAZETTE. WE ARE IN DEMOCRATIC RULE.
Unfortunately those that are for the appointment and those against are biased and sentimental.I so much believe that with efficient control ,monitoring and measurement system ,any senior custom officer would do the job well,probably our retired colonel and emmergency c g of custom ,will bring people from the moon to achieve his aim.Nigeria leaders will learn how to set effective monitoring and controls ,and strictly enforce those controls before things can work in Nigeria.Tell me how 77yrs old and retired solder will manage a current computerized and modern customs.
What is wrong with Nigeria is that we always feel problems are solved by individual and not by system. It will take Mr. Ali 4 years to understand customs. Gazette is a sub set of the Constitution, if it’s at variance to the Constitution it must be changed first. PM should not be allowed to continue to break law under the guise of change, he is setting bad precedent for others that will come after him. This is not a military rule where whatever the Head of State say go.
if truly the president could not find any staff of customs and exercise clean and capable enough to be appointed by whatever method, how come the present staff are still left in their respective duty posts? Are we being hypocritical. Are we pretending we do not know what is going on in customs and the like ministries and departments where the opportunities to be dirty are high? For me this problem is systemic and looking for a so-called clean person who will do the cleansing will amount to nothing but political noise. If the past serving officers or retirees did a very good job how come our Nigeria is what it is today? Changing people for the sake of changing is all that is happening. Let us be told in clear terms the basis of this change by the President, even though he has the prerogative to make the change. He should also be seen as transparent when doing so and accountable to us the electorate/masses of Nigeria.
I like your responses. The system has to be changed
I don’t understand some people! How can and old man of such age like Ali that has never been a customs offer be able to clean up the decay in…….we need a professional with vast experience on both surface and surcharge of customs duties. Moreover, you need a tiff to catched a tiff! Stop breaking the Law….Northern King!
Buhari was voted in to come and fight corruption, the administration is is own, he can run it according to his styles. Can Buhari work with thief? it’s capital noo!!!!!,
The man dies in him who keeps silent in the face of tyranny- WS. It hurts badly when conspiratorially, those who should promote transparency in espousing the law, for clearly selfish reason, choose to turn the law on its head to curry Favour from an administration that is inexorably on the path of infraction of all known laws! Sagay did it in the case of the INEC appointment and got rewarded! Falana is doing it and shortly he will be rewarded! Let these turncoat pseudo- democrats know that they are working against national interest and soon there will come a day of reckoning.! Father Kukah warned Buhari against sycophants and hypocrites like Falana who will always dance “skelewu” before any President to obtain Favour. This is my argument:
1. Law and order remain the twin pillars upon which any decent society is built and so any attempt to separate one from the other as Falana sought to do is hair splitting and must be rejected.
2. There is a clear lacuna in the CEMA and the President in exercise of his powers under Section 5(1) of the constitution and CEMA vide the FEC made an executive order with the mandatory word”shall”. In the appointment of a CG and this was gazetted!
3. Now, Mr Falana knows before fouling the legal firmament with his bad breath that the gazette cannot be read in isolation!
4. What to do? The proper thing is for Mr Falana to advise his client to cancel that subsisting gazette in which case the cancellation will be gazetted!
5. To ride rough shod over such in the name of it does not breach the constitution is wicked and the height of impunity!
Buhari has four years to rule this nation so why can him pick from inside nd give the officer guideline n see first. There is so many officers with high level of integrity morethan Hameed Ali
It appears that all Customs CGs must come from Northern Nigeria, a region that is not involved in international trade or any trade for that matter. I am just wondering what venom will be displayed if two consecutive Customs CGs were to be Igbos. Just thinking!!
Buhari himself is a mistake – the biggest mistake Nigerians ever made! How do u expect a man who didn’t know the where about of certificate to know how to manage things?
I’m confuse oh abeg! Is col Ali going to work with Angels? Or same personel still in service? The deputy comptrolars who failed the security test, what happens to them now that they’re indicted? Im confused pls!
I personally disagree with Falana (SAN)when he said official gazette is not a law and again, the sole administration was used during a military regime and not in democracy. Now “Democracy & Military regime” which of the two concept the due process is supposed to followed? No man is 100% clean accept God. Any a man is doing with a bias mind the person is corrupt. Is the GMB appointment so far justify the & equity?
Is there somebody out there the president can listen to? Please tell our dear president that he cannot correct a wrong with another wrong. The president needs to follow laid down procedures in his appointments. This is one mistake too many.
Why thing get didn’t they take shape themselves, until the bring a neutral person to effect the change in the service.
Mr president is over right in de appointment of mr Ali to head de customs services, de problem we hv in dis our country Nigeria When u talk off highly corrupt government organization is de Customs & Police force, although de IGP Arese is sanitizing de police force seriously, de high level of corrupt officers in de police has affected de growth & developement of our Economy, like wise de customs, with de few months already spend as IGP, Arase will surely bring back de glory of de Nigeria Police Force to light as its track of record speak volumes of his performance. I wish de customs agencies speedy recoveries.
Ali was never in custom, without any prerequisite knowledge of what is obtained in the system he was sent to go and clean. Ali is not a spirit or mr. Know it all, he will still rely on the help of those DCGs that failed the integrity test of the president for him to know what is obtainable. In a situation like this what do you think will happen? What happens to those ” bad eggs” identified, without which we are running in a circle.
they jus want dis man ali 2 die ontime. Whr do they want hm 2 start frm! Is it by learnin d rank nd file custom av? If d DGs fail y nt dimise dem or force dm 2 retire intead of dis show of shame
Your comment.. We only need 2 pray 4 d best, but from the look of things, hw can an old colonel riding a Peugeot car 4 years and having gray hair rule. what training has he, will d present DCGs work with him? 1 thing is certain, A DCG cn never Salute a retired Colonel no matter wat. its best de retire. Buhari needs a Civil advice 2 rule Nigeria.
Falana is a camelon, why should he speak for his party when Liar Mahammed and Adesina the liar Pastor is there?
trying to pick ‘the best men’ from one-hundred-and-seventy million nigerians is akin to an attempt to picking the whitest sands on the sea shore. the best way to pick a good team by any successful organisation is to throw the contest open and the best people selected by a panel of selectors and examiners. No single individual is expected to be a true judge of the character of all men to be able to select the best for an entire nation. that is why there are political parties, executive committees, cabinets, caucuses. etc
Let’s allow col.hammed to work! Let him reform the service,let him look into welfare on junior officers, the salary is poor, NHIS has been cancelled, no enough accommodations for officers