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Yar’Adua: A Restructuring Agenda For The Customs By Atâyi Babs Opaluwah
Entering Nigeria through its numerous borders, which incidentally are all linked to francophone countries, can be quite an enthralling experience, especially for bilingual Nigerians. A recent experience at the Seme border after a an assignment in the Rebublique du Benin brought to the fore once again, the embarrassing state of the Nigerian Customs Service and the urgent need for its re-positioning. For all intents and purposes, the Seme border remains one of the major gateways to the economies of nearly all the West African nations as its strategic location coupled with Benin’s liberal trade policy facilitate swiftly, the mobility of European and American goods within the entire sub-region.
It is in recognition of this strategic importance that security officials including the Customs are positioned on the two sides of the divide by both countries. Coming over to the Nigerian side of the border opens an entirely sordid chapter in one’s voyage as men and women of the Nigerian Custom Service go to any length to prove to everyone including first time visitors that Nigeria, the country they are about to enter, is not only a habitation of rogues, gangsters, drug pushers, fraudsters and evil-minded leviathans but one whose rendezvous with absolute oddity and rottenness is a never-ending one. These they achieve effortlessly with their wanton acts of extortion, intimidation and deprivation of the innocent while at the same time backslapping and colluding with smugglers, cross-border bandits and thugs to wreak havoc on the nation’s economy. Under the watchful eyes of the men of Nigerian Custom Service (and of course other security agencies whose credentials in the hall of infamy are already well known to Nigerians), the Seme border operates a booming market where hard drugs, sex currencies and seized properties are sold with rapacious impunity. ‘The situation is the same in other borders’ I am told. I am even reminded by the Customs men “ whatever you see us do here has official backing and its proceeds are shared up to the DCG (Deputy Comptroller-General) levels. To further confirm this, the Customs operates an official number of 10 checkpoints on the Lagos – Badagry expressway alone and all these checkpoints are manned by certain category of officers who report directly to officers on the Comptroller ranks.
That the Nigerian Custom Service has been overtaken by criminal cartels and other obnoxious syndicates may not appear strange to many Nigerians who are daily inundated with tales of the extraordinary wealth at the disposal of the officers and men of the Nigerian Custom Service and the fabulous future that awaits anyone who picks up a career in the service. These tales, which are absurd in its entirety, obviously engenders a disconnect with the strategic relevance of the customs service in the execution of fiscal policies of the Government especially in the areas of the much-needed revenue collection in form of custom and excise duties and the implementation of the basic aspects of the nation’s annual budget. More distended from the reality of the Nigerian Custom Service as presently constituted, is the all-important role the service is expected to play in the on-going efforts at the regional integration of the economies of West African nations which Nigeria currently plays a pivotal role.
Also, the actualisation of a number of lofty developmental objectives contained in the NEPAD Document lies heavily on the vibrancy and level of responsiveness to new economic realities of the customs organisations of member-states. It is in furtherance of the above national, regional and continental imperatives that the need for a comprehensive, wholehearted restructuring of the Nigerian Custom Service becomes urgent and pertinent on the Government of President Yar’Adua. By a comprehensive restructuring, one is ostensibly not anticipating a rehash of the half-hearted and impotent restructuring programme put in place by the immediate past administration. The programme gave birth to the then Presidential Committee on Customs Restructuring headed by Esther Nenadi Usman with the likes of Kanu Agabi, Nuhu Ribadu, Waziri Mohammed, Kabiru Mohammed and Adebayo Adedayo as members. The committee ensured it bungled the entire exercise by its members’ inability to rise above ethnic and parochial sentiments, displace, their personal interest for the greater interest of Nigeria and put in place, an enduring framework for an effective Customs service.
It is pertinent to refresh our memory at this point. Right from the onset, the Nenadi Committee left no one in doubt as regards its chosen course of failure as it opened its flanks for penetration, lobbying ad manipulation by Emirs, top Government officials, “Stakeholders in the smuggling sector”, and tainted custom officers. At the end of the day, the committee came up with bizarre recommendations for the appointment of a new Comptroller General of Customs (CGC), appointment of 3 new Deputy Comptrollers-General (DCGs), 13 new Assistant Comptroller-General (ACGs), collapsing of the previous 6 departments to 3, collapsing of nearly 50 Area Commands to 25, and the retirement of 75 Comptrollers. To reduce the problems facing the service to just mere reshuffling of men and juggling of positions Suffice it to add that the committee used its extensive influences in the presidency then to muscle their recommendations to reality as the then deputy senate president had his homeboy as CGC and the committee members had officer(s) from their states appointed as DCGs or ACGs irrespective of their past recors and academic qualifications of these officers.
The resultant effect of the ‘good work’ done by the committee is the present-day state of the Nigerian Custom Service: very corrupt, evil-minded and undisciplined, all as a result of the elevation of men and women to positions and ranks that are way beyond their mental capacities and the promotion of subordinates over superiors. In the light of the nationwide consultation and deliberations to move the nation forward, President Yar’Adua should set in place an impregnable machine, peopled by men and women of unimpeachable character, to properly dissect and diagnose the real issues affecting the effective and maximal capacity utilisation of the officers and men of the Nigerian Custom Service vis-à-vis the structure and command dynamics, personnel training and retraining, revenue generation and capacity building. Tied to these is the need for a strict adherence to the scheme of service for customs as published in the Federal Republic of Nigeria official Gazette No. 24 Vol. 89 of 25th March 2002 which stipulates that “all appointments to the Customs superitendent (General Duty) Cadre must be holders of at least a bachelors’ degree from a recognized university.” The machinery should ensure that future leadership positions in the Nigerian Custom Service should not be extended too diploma/NCE-wielding officers or transferees to the service whose qualifications, professional competence and experience in service run contrary to the key provisions of the customs scheme of service.
It is also necessary to upwardly review the current command structure of the customs against the backdrop of the experience of the customs department of other African nations. Furthermore, an effective and transparent revenue generation mechanism that will block the current loopholes is urgently required. This is to enable Government meet up with its obligations and translate fiscal objectives to tangible realities for the nation. Nigeria cannot continue to afford the luxury of a daily leakage of revenue into private pockets all in the name of inefficient custom and excise duties. The cumulative cost of corruption, high-wired smuggling activities and misappropriation of funds in the Nigerian Custom Service has been enormous in terms of human financial and economic sacrifices and its impact on the nation’s march to greatness can only be hazarded as the service churns out billionaires out of its officers’ cadre yearly while the annual revenue generation target of the entire service wobbles between a miserly N15 billion to N19 billion!
For emphasis sake, Nigerians deserve a custom service that will amongst several others, reduce cargo clearance cycle to 24 hours maximum thereby eliminating port congestion and streamlining of customs clearance procedures under a swift destination inspection scheme, fast-track clearing for manufacturers based on corporate indemnity (as it applies in ECOWAS countries) and not on N20m bank bond, complete harmonisation of Common External Tariff (CET) to address industry concerns and curb smuggling and dumping as well as strengthening the ASCYUDA instrument and rigorous regulatory enforcement of the insurance industry to ensure prompt claims settlement. Atâyi Babs OPALUWAH Broadcasting House, Ikoyi – Lagos
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