Customs ComptrollerGeneral, Dikko Inde    Abdullahi recently spoke to Godfrey Bivbere in Abuja on the long prohibition lists, corruption in the service, the continuous stay of FOU operatives along the express, his modest achievement in his first 365days in office and more. Excerpts

*Customs Comptroller-General, Dikko Inde Abdullahi

It is 365days since you assumed duty as Comptroller_General. How has the journey been?
To God be the glory.

I can say we have recorded tremendous achievements, with the help of the Federal Government. Things are really working well for the Nigeria Customs Service, both in terms of revenue, equipment and welfare.

I can say without contradiction that the journey has been excellent.
You have increased staff salaries, built new barracks, paid leave and transfer allowances as at when due, and other incentives. What is the magic?
The magic is that every regime has its unique opportunity, the difference here is how you utilize that opportunity.

When we came in, we set out benchmark for ourselves, call it a road map if you wish, and we have kept religiously to this road map. Don’t forget that we came up with a 6_point agenda, and welfare was second on our scale of preference after capacity building.

We believe that for our reform to take root, the welfare of our officers should take centre stage. What we did at our very first management meeting was to articulate ways and means of ensuring that we keyed into the FG’s reform regime.

Having identified these challenges, we observed that the only way is to ensure that officers and men are offered mouth_watering incentives.

This made our job at the management level very easy. What also worked in our favour was the cooperation we got from President Goodluck Jonathan and also from both chambers of the National Assembly. We shared our problems and aspirations with the Presidency and the National Assembly. We have had tremendous cooperation from government, and this made our job a lot easier.

Despite the incentives to officers, the general public still appears to be inundated with cases of corruption in the Service. How do you react to this?

If you have the opportunity to visit our Enforcement, Investigation and Inspection Department, they will tell you how many officers are on line.

In fact, having addressed the basic problems of officers such as accommodation and poor salary, management believes officers have no reason to carry on with corrupt practices. Henceforth any officer that is found wanting, compromising, aiding and abetting duty evasion, under payment and smuggling risk dismissed and prosecution.

Why have some duty collecting banks refused to have their branches located at the ports?
This has to do largely with the wrong business judgment of the affected banks, and this is highly regrettable. I must emphasis here that it is in the interest of such banks to move closer to the ports. For the purposes of cheque confirmation, I think the ideal thing to do is for banks to have their branches located at the ports; it is clear to all and sundry that those who have their branches located near the ports enjoy better patronage.

I enjoin those who have not yet done so to do so immediately. Another advantage here is that it helps reduce time wasted in clearing cargo at the port.

We are aware that no fewer than 5,000 officers were recruited last year. Are we going to wait for another 15 years and 5,000 vacancies before we commence another round of recruitment?

We learn from experience, and we will not repeat the mistakes of the past. The last 5,000 officers that were recruited brought up some challenges and exposed the inadequacies of our training schools which have capacity for not more than 2,000 cadets.

So we were faced with no option than to send the balance 3,000 to police training schools. In as much as we commend the police for their gesture and cooperation, we also discovered some significant differences in orientation between those trained by the police and those trained in Kano and Ikeja Customs Schools.

We have vowed not to compromise on the quality and standard of our cadets, and the only way we can ensure this is to prepare them in a purely customs environment, we don’t want to produce half baked customs officers. Another area of concern is the availability of resource persons.

During the last exercise, we were over stretched with officers scattered all over the country in various police colleges like Benin, Enugu, Maiduguri etc. This year, we have decided to recruit 2,000 so we could give them quality training. So I want to assure you that this year will recruit 2,000 officers to compliment the ones who are retiring.
We hope the exercise will be made public?

For the purpose of federal character, each and every part of Nigeria must be represented. We have 710 LGAs, so the 2,000 officers are going to be divided by the number of LGAs, and that gives us approximately 3 officers per local council.

What is your take on the operations of FOUs vis a vis complaints by customs agents?
We have told Alhaji (Olayiwola) Shittu, President of the Association of Nigeria Licenced Customs Agents that what is paramount to government is security of the nation. The clearing agent is not the importer, he is only an agent to the importer. And so like the custom officer, he is not in a position to know the actual content of the container, the one who knows the actual content is the importer.

For example, the scanners we use at the ports cannot differentiate between a dismantled AK47 and other spare parts loaded in the same container. Such a container, you will agree with me require a physical examination of 100 percent for the purpose of the security of this country. We took an oath, and the interest of the nation comes first in whatever we do.

We cannot sit down here and fold our arms simply because people are complaining of delay, we shall never compromise the security of the country and the safety of its citizenry. I will not do that, I will do my job the way I ought to do it.

What have you achieved in terms of training and retraining of officers?
I can tell you that within this one year, we have trained more than 8,000 officers, both senior and junior, including myself.

I went for training in Canada, I led a team of two DCGs and 15 Controllers. We are about to send another 30 Controllers to the US and other countries. Locally, we are training the juniors officers for computer compliance, the idea is to ensure that by latest December every customs man is computer literate.

I have just approved the immediate dispatch of our top controllers to proceed on a leadership course in the USA. This is a course that I benefitted from and I felt that those who interact with the outside world and people at the helm of the nation’s affairs need to benefit from also. About three hundred men have also been charged to proceed to acquire computer skills.

We are sending  four staff to three weeks courses after which we shall present computers to them because the advancements in smuggling has become IT inclined and the service has to follow suit to stop these smugglers in their tracks.
What other welfare packages should officers expect from you in the next couple of months?

Well, so far we have been able to squarely address the twin problems of poor remuneration and inadequate accommodation. At the moment, we are pushing for co_operative societies. Now, we want to see how we can accommodate officers in cities of their choice upon retirement on owner occupier basis so that officers are not homeless after a meritorious service to their fatherland. All things being equal, this will take off before September this year in all 36 states of the federation.

We have had the highest turn over of Area Controllers in just 12 months. Is this not counter productive?
Let us take an analogy of the football team. If anybody is not performing, I will not sit down here and allow him to under perform simply because I know him, or because someone spoke to me about him? If I send you to a command, and you didn’t perform, of course I will remove you. All I need is result, because I am the one who is the captain.

I insist that everyone must perform, let everyone be up and doing. There is no big deal being an area controller, it is a responsibility that has to be guided jealously, anybody can be there.

As Comptroller_General, I report on my desk before 8am every morning. Now tell me, do you want me to keep an area controller who at 11.00am is not on his desk, and keeps clients waiting indefinitely? That’s impossible. I don’t care about your connection in society. I will change you even if you had assumed duties in less than 24hrs, and I have course to wield the big stick. The Service cannot condone area controller who carry on as if they are bigger than the Service.

What’s your take on our long import prohibition list?
The Federal Government’s economic team is taking a closer look on this, Mr. President is also looking at it. There is hope that things we don’t produce, things that we do not manufacture, will henceforth be removed from the list, and imported on commensurate duty.

Quote: Having addressed the basic problems of officers such as accommodation and poor salary, management believes officers have no reason to carry on with corrupt practices