Few days after alleging fraud up to the tune of N1.6bn in the ongoing recruitment by the Nigeria Customs Service, Deputy Chairman, Senate Committee on Customs, Senator Francis Fadahunsi has further accused the Customs boss, Retired Col. Hameed Ali of superintending over monumental infractions at the service.
Fadahunsi, himself a retired Assistant Comptroller General of Customs, in a statement on Friday accused the Comptroller General of the NCS, Hammed Ali of carrying out a lopsided and illicit recruitment exercise.
Recall that Fadahunsi recently raised alarm that the Customs boss was using N1.6 billion for the recruitment of just 3,200 new officers.
The NCS had shortlisted over 160,000 candidates for 3,200 vacancies and invited them for a written test early in the week. The New Diplomat gathered candidates wrote the recruitment test at short notice during the week nationwide, making many of the shortlisted candidates to miss out as some got invitation SMS hours after the test had been conducted.
The Senator further alleged that the customs boss deliberately outsourced the process of recruitment and training out of greed, despite availability of requisite facility in the agency to carry out the exercise.
Fadahunsi said: “Ali lied to the nation and should not be trusted by anybody. The reason is that Customs has full fledged training facilities. There is one in Ikeja, Lagos, with full accommodation and is fully automated.
“There is also another advanced training college in Karu, built to university standard for senior officers. It is headed by a Deputy Comptroller General, a well trained officer, while the one in Ikeja is headed by a Comptroller.
“These facilities are recognised by the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and they are acknowledged as centres of excellence.
“Customs also has the best training school in Kano for junior officers. These schools are well staffed and they have excellent facilities. The junior staff training school can accommodate a lot and is headed by a Comptroller. The schools also have canteens that can cater for the feeding of these trainees.
“The question now is why will anyone rightly think of outsourcing the training of Customs officers if not because of greed.
“It is never heard of that the military and paramilitary organisations in any country outsourced their recruitment and training if not for greed and find jobs for the boys.
“This was the same thing that led to the death of scores of young Nigerians when the former Minister for interior outsourced the recruitment for the Nigerian Immigration Service.
“Nigerians should also remember that this so-called recruitment exercise kicked off in April, 2019 and for reasons best known to Ali and his team, it dragged until now. In the course of this, families have lost millions of Naira through the activities of people who took advantage of job seekers.”
“To further confirm that the recruitment exercise is a ruse, applicants were receiving SMS inviting them for the test barely an hour after the exams.
“Mr President must disabuse the minds of Nigerians who now see the Customs as an annex of the Nigeria Army. The Senate Committee Chairman is a retired Army Major, the Comptroller General is a retired Colonel and a serving General is the Principal Staff Officer”.
