Senate walks out Customs boss over improper dressing

•Says anybody can wear mufti and
claim CG
•Asks him to return in uniform next
Wednesday
•No law compels me to wear uniform
– Ali •Customs N8.5bn request to complete
HQ stalled in House of Reps
•Reps query variation of consultancy
fee from N206m to N1bn By Henry Umoru, Emman Ovuakporie &
Johnbosco Agbakwuru ABUJA – FOR not wearing complete
uniform as instructed, the Senate,
yesterday, walked out the Comptroller-
General of Nigeria Customs Service, NCS,
Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali, retd, and
asked him to return next Wednesday in complete Customs uniform. Senators asked Ali to leave the plenary
because rather than wear Customs
uniform, he appeared in a white kaftan
dress with white cap and black shoes to
match. According to them, Ali is not a
sole administrator; as Customs CG, he has to be dressed as such to appear
before them because anybody can wear
a mufti and claim to be the NCS boss. The lawmakers disagreed with Ali that
no law compels him to wear the
Customs uniform as one of them
recalled that Ali was one of those who
got the current uniform introduced in
2004 Ali’s thorny visit to the Senate occurred
as the NCS’ N8.5 billion virement
request to complete its headquarters
sufered a setback in the House of
Representatives with the legislators
querying the variation of consultancy fee from N206 million to one billion
naira. Ali, who arrived the Senate at about
9.30am was ushered into the Senate
chambers at 12.05 pm and was
promptly asked by Deputy Senate
President Ike Ekweremadu, who
presided over the sitting, why he was not in uniform. It took the senators
some 40 minutes to deliberate on Ali’s
matter before he was sent out of the
chamber for what the lawmakers
termed ‘’improper dressing.’’ Custom boss Hameed Ali The Customs boss who came with
Customs officers who all wore uniform,
was asked to leave the chamber at12.40
pm. The lawmakers had insisted on
Wednesday that Ali must appear before
them, yesterday, unfailingly after he
had submitted a letter to the office of
Senate President Bukola Saraki to
explain his inability to appear at the Wednesday’s plenary. No law compels me to wear uniform —Ali After introducing himself to the
lawmakers, the Customs boss, who
noted that he has no knowledge of any
that law compels him to wear the
agency’s uniform, said that his letter of
appointment did not ask him to wear uniform. You’re wrong, senators rebuke Ali The senators, however, took a swipe at
him, citing sections of the Customs and
Excise Act to affirm the need for him to
wear uniform. Deputy Senate Leader, Bala Ibn
Na’Allah, who provided a detailed
background to Ali’s invitation, said that
the Act setting up the Customs Service
provide that the Comptroller-General
should wear uniform, even as he said that the motion leading to Ali’s
invitation was moved by him, upon
sighting the circular on old vehicles
issued by the Customs. Senator Na’Allah said that the issue
would have been resolved peacefully but
for the manner the CG reacted and
claimed that he was not employed to
wear uniform. Making reference to Section 7 (2) and
Section 8 of the Customs and Excise Act,
he insisted that the law requires the CG
to wear uniform. His words: “I crave your indulgence to
try and put a recital with what I can
best refer to as unnecessary. You will
recall that I raised a motion on the floor
of the Senate based on a circular issued
or allegedly issued by the Comptroller General. The requirement was simple:
you issued a circular in which we have a
lot of calls from constituents
entertaining anxiety as to what will
happen to them. What we wanted,
clearly, was in keeping with the terms and tradition of our democratic
governance. “We require that you come before the
committee of the Senate to say this is
how the circular is and this is how we
intended to implement it. This would
have given us the opportunity to allay
the fears of our constituents. “Unfortunately, it was alleged that in
reaction to that resolution, you allegedly
made certain comments that appear to
be derogatory to the institution of the
Senate by saying the Senate has no
business whether you wear the uniform or not. Now, the Senate is not privileged
to see your letter of appointment but
what is important is that you issued
that circular in your capacity as the
Comptroller General and at all material
time you have answered and acted the office of the CG. “Today, you are in this chamber because
the Senate summoned the comptroller
general of Customs and let me refer you
to Section 7 (2) of the Customs and
Excise Act. It reads: ‘Any proceeding for
an offence under this law will be taken in the name of Comptroller General.’ The
intendment of this is that it has given
you legal power in your capacity as
comptroller general. Then Section 8 of
the same law says: ‘For the purpose of
carrying out or enforcing the provisions of the customs and Excise law, all
officers shall have the same powers,
authorities, privileges as given by law to
police officers…” I want you to read the
recital. “And under Section 10, it says: ‘Unlawful
assumptions and character of an
officer.’ Don’t forget it is referring to
Comptroller General of Customs to
which at all material time you have
answered. It says ‘If for the purpose of telling admission to any building or
either place or any ship or aircraft or
vehicle or of procuring to be done of his
own authority or for any other unlawful
purpose. Any person not being an
officer assumes the name, designation or character of an officer he fails in
addition to any other punishment to
which he may have being rendered
himself liable to a fine of N1000.’ “The combined effect of this, the power
to prosecute is entirely that of the
executive and in this democracy it
belongs to the President. But the
constitution which we have made and
enacted and given to us says the attorney general of the federation has
that power but went ahead to say
certain officers which include
Comptroller General has that power and
it is statutory power. It means your
appointment is statutory.” Anybody can dress in mufti and claim
CG – Adeola In his contribution, Senator Solomon
Adeola, APC, Lagos West, said: “To start
with, this Senate, the highest
lawmaking body of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria issued a resolution and the
content of the resolution is crystal clear and which states that the Comptroller
General of Customs appear before it in
uniform. The resolution still stands and
what is happening here today is
contrary to the resolution passed by the
109 senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. “I believe it is only right and proper for
the CG of customs to comply with that
resolution and as you can see here this
afternoon other persons that followed
the CG of customs into this chamber are
fully dressed in their attire as members of the NCS and I want to say this
anybody can dress in mufti and call
himself CG. “The Comptroller General is a rank and
if the rank is not here I don’t know who
is before us, and yes they have
identified the CG but the question still
remains that the CG still needs to
appear before us in full comptroller general of customs uniform. His car
carry a signal of the rank of Comptroller
General, the official aircraft of the
customs carry an insignia of the NCS and
I believe we should just stick by the
resolution of the Senate and ask the CG to comply with that resolution.” Barau, Abe concur Senator Jibrin Barau, APC, Kano North
said that having heard what Na’Allah
said, the customs boss should go back
and comply before he could be allowed
to address that Senate. Also, Senator Magnus Abe, APC, Rivers
South East who noted that Ali that
should remember that he remains the
image maker of the NCS and should
work to build the image of the Service
he superintends, said that even if there was no law that compelled the CG to
wear the uniform he should wear the
attire for the sake of the NCS and the
Senate. Senator Thompson Sekibo, PDP, Rivers
East reminded his colleagues that the
business of governance should always
be based on rule of law and moved a
motion that Ali should be given another
date, next Wednesday to comply with the Senate resolution by wearing
appropriate uniform before he could be
allowed to address the Senate. Senator Barnabas Gemade who
seconded the motion, said that even
Nigerian Presidents wear uniform of
different legs of the Armed forces to
signify their position as Commander-in-
Chief and as a mark of respect for constitutionally established institutions. Wakili Ali’s senator intervenes Senator Ali Wakili, APC, Bauchi Central
and the Senator representing the
Customs boss told his colleagues that he
wanted a middle of the road approach
as an Amicus Curiae, just as he said that
the laws guiding Customs and Excise are very clear on the need to appear in
uniform. He, however, pleaded with the Senate
to allow Ali go, while the Senate
Committee on Customs intervene to
effect a change of his rank to Sole
Administrator and advised Ali to stop
grandstanding. He said: “With humility and great
respect, I will prefer to borrow from you
lawyers that let me start as an amicus
jury, so if I don’t pronounce it very well
do forgive me. “As a distinguished member of this
Senate either within or outside I will
never do anything that will denigrade
this institution. As a senator
representing the comptroller general
Hameed Ali, I hold obligation to him to be his guide and guard. “Most of you that watched the
television, some few months back when
we had cause at the committee level to
raise this issue with the comptroller
general, I did advise him publicly …let us
go and change his designation to sole administrator. “As an amicus curiae, the Armed Forces
Act is very explicit that my brother is
relying on, the Nigerian Customs Service
Board Cap 100 that established the
Nigerian Customs Service is very
explicit. The Customs Excise Management Act 1958 with all the
substituting legislation is very explicit. “The Preventive Cct 1963, the
subsequent government decision
especially 1976 when the then technical
branch and then preventive branch were
merged to form then the Department of
Customs and Excise where the issue of uniform arose is very explicit. “We are very unfortunate that my
brother comptroller general was part of
the administration that came into being
in 2004. He was part of those that
organised the Customs Service where
the customs say that there was need to have an attitudinal change concerning
any customs uniform of brown, that the
green over the brown trouser should be
changed to the bluish so that Nigerians
can have a better something. “The resolution of the Senate is very
explicit and I want you to temper
justice with mercy to give us the last
chance to go back to see what we can
do, so that some of these things will be
addressed. I regret his grandstanding, I saw him on TVC when he was
grandstanding that he is not going to
wear the uniform. None of us has never
doubted his integrity and his
performance. The only nitty gritty is that
because we are the real representatives of the people, when this issue of
circular and the border came up we
came up with a resolution but the
customs service grandstanded and even
went to the public.’’ You must lead by example,
Ekweremadu tells CG Before Deputy Senate President
Ekweremadu put the question to vote,
he told the Customs boss that leaders
must lead by example and that if he
refuses to wear the uniform, other
officers of the service can also claim that no law compels them to wear
uniform. The senators unanimously voted to have
Ali return to the chamber next week
Wednesday, March 22, in proper
dressing, to brief the lawmakers. Customs N8.5bn virement request to
complete HQ stalled in House Meanwhile, the inability to produce
details of N8.5billion virement request
to make up N17 billion to complete the
corporate headquarters of the NCS
stalled a scheduled hearing by members
of the House of Representatives Committee on Customs, yesterday. The lawmakers also queried why the
consultancy fee of the project was
varied from N206 million in 2006 to
N1billion in 2017. The Rep Abiodun Faleke-led committee,
during the hearing, yesterday, had
asked the main consultant of the
project, Design Cost Associate, to
explain why N8.5bn was needed and
whether it will be enough to complete the Customs House, which was started
in 2006. Mr Hussaini Dikko, who represented the
main consultant was asked by the
committee to make a presentation on
how the money was expended on the
project from 2006 till date. But in his presentation, Dikko failed to
give all the relevant information
required to actually ascertain how the
initial amount of N2.8bn cost of the
project migrated to N9bn and then to
N17bn. At this point, Faleke was forced to ask
Dikko to sit and think properly as the
information he was presenting to the
committee was not really
communicating any information. He said: “You have a presentation,
please talk to your presentation so that
we can properly understand what you
are saying because we simply want to
know why you are asking for this money
to complete this project.’’ Another member, Rep Zaphaniah Bitrus
Jisalo, PDP, FCT said: “Ordinarily, this
project should be revoked because most
information in your presentation has
not said anything about the state of
completion of the headquarter.’’ The chairman at this stage intervened
and asked Dikko to tell the committee
whether the increase in dollar or
building equipment affected the
increase. Dikko said, “we are lucky that we had
purchased all the equipment before the
fall of the dollar so the virement for
now will complete the entire building
sitting on a 38-hectare piece of land.’’ The lawmakers also queried why his
consultancy fee rose from N206m to
N1bn. Dikko could not give a convincing
answer as he was told that consultancy
fees are never varied, it is always fixed. Apparently realising that he could not
answer the questions of the committee
members, Dikko begged the members
to give him time to produce the 300-
page details of how far the building
process has gone. Faleke adjourned the meeting sine die
after giving Dikko time to produce the
details.