A batch of the officers of the Nigeria Customs Service have reached out to President Bola Tinubu and the new Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Services to save them from stagnancy and marginalization.
The customs officers employed between 1989 and 1994, in a document sighted by MicroSecondNews, complained about ‘discriminatory promotional exercise’ in the service.
According to them, those who joined NCS between 1989 and 1994 have been continuously bypassed for promotion, while other batches have enjoyed accelerated promotions.
The document prepared by a lawyer the officers retained to fight their cause reads in part: “We humbly request to consider redressing the injustice meted out to older officers’ sequel to directives communicated vide the letter NCSB/ABJ/AP&D/94/S.I/VOLV/19 dated 29 March 2022. This is connected with the implemented discriminatory special promotions given with backdated notional effects to newer officers recruited as graduates starting from 2009. These special promotions were reportedly approved by the Nigeria Customs Service Board (NCSB) consequent to Management’s presentation of the recommendations of its Generation Gap Committee.”
The officer further alleged that the management of the NCS recently announced its Board’s approval of a proposal to institute yet another special promotion scheme designated as a competency-based accelerated career progression plan (CBACP).
The management, they said, claimed that this scheme was necessary to “close the Generation Gap that could lead to a vacuum in the NCS higher hierarchies if not addressed.”
The aggrieved officers said the customs service is now faced with “the problem of coping with the passive resistance to teamwork created by a class conflict between the segregated customs officers and the favoured customs officers.”
The officers appealed to the authorities to quickly review the situation before it degenerated even further.
The aggrieved officers asked for immediate upgrade or they are “laterally converted into the officer corps based on the competency-based accelerated career progression plan (CBACP)”.
They insisted that the existing policies of the service are “discriminatory, extra-legal and repugnant to equity, good order and natural justice.”
They added, “For a regimented service like the NCS sudden loss of seniority by an entire generation of older officers to their juniors is absurd.”
The public relations officer of the NCS is yet to respond to our inquiries at the time of filing this report.
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Some of us recruited in 1991 were denied promotions up to 1999, had gone back to school with the approval of the Service and studied earning both graduate and post graduate degrees yet when the chips are down we aren’t good for anything. Prior to the recruitment of these now favoured “special breed” of officers, some of of us were already upgraded into the Superintendent Cadre of the Service yet we are still considered unworthy of courses like manpower development, Middle Management Development for optimum productivity and career progression.
Imagine that after 5 years on a particular rank for no fault of yours only for your former subordinate to meet you on the rank and even get promoted to be your superior! How can there be harmonious coexistence amongst officers in such a setting? How would you put in your best with such a battered morale? In the face of such humiliating treatment only lack luster will be the order of the day!
In the face of these injustices some of us are of the opinion that the Ag CGC BA Adeniyi and his management team should do either of the following:
1. Give one step ahead across board to those of us who were recruited between 1989 – 1994 and promote us (double advancement) just as our subordinates were given and retire all of us with a one year salary take home pay.
2. Consider all officers who were recruited between 1989 – 1994 who lost promotion years and their seniority, adjust their ranks to reflect the reality of career progression. That is, counting 3 years on each rank and arriving at the appropriate rank of their contemporaries then retire all with a one year take home pay.
When this is done the Service will have ample opportunity to focus on training the “chosen ones” for the purpose of actualizing the set goals/objectives in good time.