Nigeria Customs Service: From Abdullahi Dikko to Hamilton Ali
Brass Tacks
with Suleiman Uba Gaya
0803 567 6295 (Text Message Only)
One humid evening in April, 2012, I was seated on my desk as editor of the daily edition of one of the biggest newspapers in Nigeria, when I received a call from an unknown number: it was in the heat of production and I didn’t want any distraction. But when the same number rang again, I picked the call, rather reluctantly. The caller introduced himself as Abdullahi Dikko Inde. My head was obviously fuzzy, and though it was a name that automatically rang a bell, I didn’t decipher it until the caller added that he was the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service.
I greeted him and asked whether I could be of help, to which he responded that he called to get to know me, and to complain about a story we published the previous day, about CEMA, the law governing the operations of the Customs Service. He then educated me as to workings of the law, and asked whether I could publish a retraction. Convinced that he was right, I readily retracted the story.
The next day, he called again, thanking me for the consideration, and that marked the beginning of what became a rosy, though eventually brief relationship between the two of us, and by extension, the company I worked for.
Two months later, I decided to buy an SUV, and went to Cotonou, Benin Republic to do so. But rather than smuggling it, as most people were fond of doing, I decided to drive it to Lagos, through Seme Border. To do that, you must be ready to pay Customs Duty in full, and for the type of car I purchased, it was almost two million naira. For a journalist, the money was too much, and I sought to approach the Customs Area Controller in Seme. He was not on seat, but I met his Deputy, a very kind Katsina man called DC Kabiru.
He it was who guided me through the process, but when I asked for discount, and after hearing my name, he wondered why I had to take the trouble of coming all the way to Cotonou to purchase a vehicle when I could easily get one for free from my friend, the Comtroller-General. But I told the Deputy Controller that I wanted to surprise the CG, and was determined to pay the Customs Duty.
He told me that discount was not possible; that it was either I pay in full or I don’t. I insisted in the latter. And because my money wasn’t enough, he made up the difference from his own personal resources and I was presented with a certificate signifying I paid the duty. I held it as a badge of honor, and wherever I was stopped by personnel of the Customs Service, I would proudly present it to them.
Back in Abuja the following day, I drove the car to the Customs Headquarters and upon reaching the gate, called CG Abdullahi Dikko on phone and asked him to notice the car I was driving into the premises with. When eventually I told him the story, and he checked the system to confirm that I indeed paid Customs Duty in full, he was amazed and thanked me for what he called my patriotic act, though also saying many such cars were available for allocation to people like me.
For the record, let me say that I never took advantage of my closeness to CG Dikko to ask for any favour or any allocation either of car or any other product. And the CG never gave me any such. By the nature of our work, most journalists, and especially editors, tend to know and relate quite closely with a lot of influential men and women of power, but we are hardly known to take advantage of such relationships to enrich ourselves.
Three years down the line, General Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential election of 2015 and became president of Nigeria. Three months later, Dikko resigned from service, and shortly after, Colonel Hamid Ali was appointed as Dikko’s replacement. I have not stepped into the headquarters of the Nigeria Customs Service since then, though the new helmsman is someone I know personally, from his days as Military Governor of Kaduna State.
When he assumed duty as the new CG, Hamid Ali changed a lot of things, the most prominent of which is the perception of the Customs Service as a haven of corruption. To do that, he ensured an uplift in the welfare of officers and men of the service, and though there was initial disgruntlement that an outsider was appointed as CG, the officers and men started accepting him as their true leader, and in no time, having realized that his tough style was all for the good of Nigeria, they started seeing their new boss as their true leader deserving of their active support.
Before long, the image of Customs personnel as the most corrupt Nigerians started changing. And the Service started earning wider respect from within the country and among the international community. To be fair to Dikko, though he was later accused of corruption, it is to his credit that he partnered with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to introduce measures aimed at stemming corruption and raising revenues to the trillion naira mark, all for the first time in the history of the Customs Service. But as is the norm in Nigeria, all the good things that Dikko did were conveniently forgotten, and emphasis was only placed on his negative past.
This, surely, is not an attempt to exonerate Dikko of any blame. He could be guilty. He could also be innocent. It is all for the courts to decide. But perhaps from wherever he may be on this planet earth, Dikko will be happy that the Customs Service that he did all he could to positively transform is now undergoing such metamorphosis that stretches the imagination.
One major thing going for CG Colonel Hamid Ali is the widely-known fact that he is not corrupt. Not even his worse enemy could creditably accuse him of corruption. In fact, if you are looking for a man who is averse to the lures of this world, Hamid Ali is without doubt one such person.
It is courtesy of Hamid Ali that today, Nigeria is earning wider respect from its recalcitrant neighbours who were engaged in all kinds of acts to cripple our economy. Now, even Ghana that does not directly share territorial borders with Nigeria is begging our government to open the border to avert its economy from crashing.
Niger Republic, which is on record to have shortchanged some of our business men doing legitimate business in that country, is now in the bid to present itself as a credible partner, even blowing the whistle on Abdurrahman Maina, alleging he kept some millions of dollars in a home in its capital city, Niamey, something it knew about all the while, but did not deem it fit to alert the government of Nigeria until now.
All the neighboring countries that were boasting that they could do without Nigeria are now realizing just how indispensable a neighbour our country has been. And even though there are reports of some Nigerian businesses getting forcefully closed down in Ghana, the closure of Nigerian border has gone a long way in earning us lots of respect from those neighbours that were taking Nigerians for trash.
But even more importantly is the direct benefit the border closure has been bringing to Nigeria. In terms of revenue, the Customs is receiving almost double the figure they used to be collecting when the borders were open. And Nigeria is now paying far less in fuel subsidy because, for the first time, we have come to the realisation that a bulk of the tens of millions of liters of fuel that Nigeria imports and distributes on daily basis is not consumed us, but illegally smuggled to these recalcitrant neighbours who never bat an eyelid about it.
And it is for that reason that Colonel Hamid Ali directed that fuel should no longer be smuggled to border towns within Nigeria, an instruction that was obviously misunderstood by the Nigerian Senate, which last week countered the Custom’s boss, without consideration to the negative implication of their action to the economy of Nigeria. Now, with the counter directive by the Senate, Nigeria is going to lose billions of naira almost on daily basis, to the few greedy ones who take advantage of proximity to smuggle thousands of liters of fuel across the borders.
No economy anywhere on the globe has ever grown with its borders as open as in the case of Nigeria. Now that it is difficult, if not impossible to import things we could produce in our shores, as was rampantly the case, our farmers and manufacturers are working hard to fill the void. It may be harsh in the beginning, but the ultimate benefit is eternal.
It is heartwarming that even though discussions are now ongoing between Nigeria and her neighbours, the Customs boss is insisting that the interest of Nigeria should always come first. For me, in as much as the borders will in a later date be opened, Nigeria can only draw benefit if it changes some of its import policies, to allow, for example, payment of customs duty for goods being imported from any of our neighbouring countries. The realities of our time automatically make the existing laws virtually obsolete.
Somehow, the Customs Service has ingeniously come up with a policy that allows those who smuggled vehicles to pay Customs Duty in Nigeria. Though it is illegal on the part of the Customs to impound any vehicle that has already been imported into Nigeria, the policy will, in no time, reduce the incidences of smuggling, as all responsible Nigerians will prefer paying the duty, to be able to move about freely without any harassment.
But then the rate of the customs duty should be significantly reduced, to make our ports more attractive, and to enable Nigeria gain much more from economy of scale. The fear that reducing the rate of duty will stifle local competitors is neither here nor there, more so as the imported goods will still be charged Duty, though at a reduced rate. But it is not going to be free. Rather, it will force our local producers to up the ante and ultimately outdo the imported goods.
Unless this is done, the reality is that there is nothing the Nigerian government or it’s Customs Service could do to stop smuggling, with our porous borders and the increasing desperation and sophistication of the smugglers.
With the Buhari Administration working on all fronts to raise revenue to be able to fulfill its campaign promises to Nigerians, this is one direction it should not in the least ignore.
A BLISSFUL BIRTHDAY TO MR. NIGERIA
On Monday, November 18th instant, a very illustrious Nigerian, Dr. Mike Ezeaju Chairman, Swisstrade Nigeria Limited, clocked 51 years on earth. In those 51 years, Dr. Ezeaju has impacted so heavily on the socio-economic fabric of Nigeria that many of his friends have since renamed him as Mr. Nigeria.
Though Igbo by tribe, Mike’s milk of human kindness has seen him stretching his company’s corporate social responsibility to many parts of the country, from his native Anambra, where he built high quality roads and is sponsoring the education of hundreds of indigent children, to Kano, Sokoto and other places where he is serving as major beacon of hope to the downtrodden.
What makes Mike’s case even more impressive is the fact that he is one business man that does not have any baggage, and has since made adherence to law and order as his renowned trademarks.
For a country possessing the highest number of out of school children in the world (about fourteen million in number), it surely will do well to celebrate the few in its midst who are truly making the much needed positive difference. And it is in that context that this column wishes Dr. Mike happier returns in good health and prosperity.
