The Nigeria Immigration Service is currently suffering from a misplaced battered image caused by a greedy Minister. The recent aborted recruitment exercise in which the Minister was the sole planner and executor left many young Nigerians dead while several others sustained injuries.
As usual, Nigerians rose up to condemn the exercise and even called for the heads of the Minister and the Comptroller General of the Immigration Service. Many of them wrongly believed that the Immigration Service conducted the exercise directly or it appointed the Consultant who collected the applicants’ money on its behalf.
While I am not in any way holding brief for the Service or writing on its behalf, I feel I have a personal moral duty to bring to the knowledge of the public my understanding of what is happening. Being a retired officer who keeps close contact with his constituency, I have seen and heard enough of what is going on between Minister Abba Moro, the Board and the Service to comment on the issue at hand.
Many commentators are ignorant of the way the Minister, Abba Moro is arrogantly ‘ruling’ the Ministry and the Para-military Services under it. Since he came into the Ministry as Minister, Abba Moro has been behaving like a Sovereign Emperor, treating Heads of the Services like his personal subjects. Insiders complain that he has no respect for the Board and on several occasions, he single handedly over-turned or simply ignored its decision as evident in his contemptuous treatment of the Board and the Immigration Service on the recent recruitment exercise.
He is said to be in the habit of shouting down Board members who disagreed with him at meetings and even threatening to sack them if they insisted on holding on to a stand that did not favour him. A former colleague once narrated to me how the Minister abused him and threatened to strip him of his uniform for daring to express an opinion the Minister did not like. Many officers believe that Moro is the worst Minister the Ministry has ever had.
He was accused or circumventing virtually all valued traditions and procedures in appointments, promotions and postings of officers and elevated to the highest level, tribalism and nepotism, that have, now become his ministerial policy. Officers complained openly and bitterly that the system had never been so corrupted.
They also alleged that he used to dictate deployment of intermediate and junior officers and sometimes even directing the specific table or assignment to place them on. This is said to be one of the reasons that brought his misunderstanding with Mrs. Uzoma, the retired Comptroller General.
The Civil Defence, Immigration and Prison Service Board which the Minister chairs has responsibility for the appointment, promotion and discipline of all officers in the Para-Military Services. The Board had since inception delegated these roles in respect of junior cadre officers to the Heads of the Services. It never delegated the roles to the Minister and one wonders from where he got the power to single handedly contracted out recruitment of officers for such crucial security agencies to a Consultant/Businessman. It is noteworthy that the consultancy contract was never advertised and the award was not processed through the established “due process” regulations. I am happy that the Board had mustered courage and openly disassociated itself from the racket and explained how he disregarded its objection to his intention even after communicating it to him in writing!
It can now be seen clearly that the Comptroller-General of Immigration Service should not be blamed or held responsible for the Minister’s greedy misadventure. Mr. Paradang, I know very well, is a thorough-bred technocrat, very meticulous and professional in his application of rules and regulations of the Service. He is an honest and fair-minded officer who always tries to maintain a balance between the unreasonable demands of the Minister and the interest of the Service. I believe that his personal disposition of humility, mild temperament and discipline must have been the reasons that prevented an open clash between him and the Minister. For example, the Minister arrogated to himself the power to conduct recruitment through illegal method, not only of senior (graduate) officers that is the sole responsibility of the Board but also that of junior officers thatis usually handled by the Service. Mr. Paradang kept his peace and followed the right channel to make his position known.
My investigation reveals that the Nigeria Immigration Service did not order or conduct the controversial recruitment exercise. The Minister and his consultant/partner did it. The Comptrollers of Immigration in charge of States where the recruitment exercise was conducted had no prior knowledge of how many candidates applied even from their own state, how many were short listed, or have the list of names(if at all there was any) of those invited to the examination centres. There was no arrangement to mark the examination answered papers. It would not have been possible any way, to mark 68,000 papers with a view to selecting less than150 candidates. It is still not clear what would have been the role of the consultant. Was it to carry out clerical work of sorting out the applications and classify them by the candidates’ state of origin, qualification and ranks applied for, and then pass them to the Board and the service for the actual recruitment? Or are they to conduct the exams, mark them, and choose the candidates to issue appointment letters?
The whole exercise was a fraud. Even if the whole vacancies were offered for a genuine exercise and shared equally to all the states of the Federation and the FCT, as traditionally done, no State would have gotten up to 150 slots. What then is the rationale behind inviting over Sixty Eight Thousand (68,000) applicants with a view to selecting less than 150 of them as was the case at Abuja?
Interestingly, there was another advertisement sometimes in January for the extension of the closing date for the receipt of applications, giving the one-day Eid-el-Maulud public holiday as reason for such magnanimity. The action was to give the impression that the organizers wanted to give more people a chance to participate in an open and fair recruitment process. At that time, I was told by a reliable source, that more than one million applications for the less than 5000 vacancies had been received and the action was just a trick to rake in more money as the amount collected then had not hit the organizers’ target. It was a well planned extortion project; an organized scam that would have turned some people multi-millionaires over night on the sweat (now blood) of innocent young men and women. Honestly, I am still wondering why the EFCC and ICPC have not shown interest in this “business”.
The Federal Government’s directive of allocating slots to the deceased families and injured applicants has not addressed the issue and is far short of the justice required on this matter. This episode must not be handled half-heartedly and eventually buried, like many similar previous cases.
But beyond this, the Federal Government must re-examine the structural and functional relationship between the Ministry/Minister of Interior, the Civil Defence, Immigration and Prisons Services Board and the Para-Military Services. The powers and limitations of each one of them must be properly defined and measures built in to prevent unnecessary meddlesomeness of the Ministers on daily affairs of the Services.
Abba Moro is not the first Minister who attempted to subdue the Services to his dictatorship tendencies, but his case probably became worst because of his unprecedented greed and belligerent behavior. Before him General Godwin Abbe had once introduced, against well-meaning advice, rigorous Military drills in a recruitment exercise that left over forty applicants dead. He, however, managed to sweep the matter under the carpet with the connivance of the Media and the National Assembly and escaped without even a sanction. I hope the matter will be exhumed one day and justice applied for the victims.
Another Minister who tried to bring the Services under unnecessary control was the late Chief Afolabi who objected to the self-accounting status granted to the Services before he was appointed, and sought to compel the Comptrollers- General to seek his approval before they could settle even telephone bills! Of course they refused, and the Minister wrote to President Obasanjo seeking for his backing to enforce his position. The President in a memo dated 3rd July, 2000, replied that the purpose of creating the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Board (as it was then known) was to grant the Services some level of autonomy including self-accounting status for their overall efficiency and effectiveness. He also instructed the Minister to use his position of chairmanship of the Board for supervisory and monitoring roles which must be guided by extant rules and regulations on relationship between parastatals, state owned companies and their supervising ministries. Mr. Afolabi was also told clearly in the memo that his role must be for the best advantage of the Services without making them to operate as departments of the Ministry.
I was told that when such Presidential standing order was brought to the attention of Abba Moro in order for him to relax his overbearing grip on the Services he dismissed it as an insult to his office. If a directive from the office that appointed him was an insult to him, one wonders what his own mostly selfish directives to the heads of the Services would amount to. It is unfortunate that Abba Moro could not differentiate between running a rural Local Government mostly populated by his tribesmen and women and that of heading a Ministry with highly sophisticated and professional Federal Security Institutions under it. Even though he calls himself “Comrade” but one needs to see how majestically he walks and churns out instructions during occasions in any of the Para-Military formations.
It is now time for the Federal Government to act. And it has to act quickly. First of all, the existing Board has to be dissolved and in its place, a Para-Military Services Staff Commission established under the Presidency to take sole responsibility of appointment, promotion and discipline of officers like the Police Service Commission. It should be headed by a chairman who must be a retired senior officer from any of the Services, three permanent Commissioners, two of whom must be retired officers from the Services while the other one must be a seasoned civil servant who retired on a rank not less than a director. Other members representing various interest groups including Ministry of Interior, and the Comptrollers-General of the Services should also be members of the Commission. The Commission must be independent and insulated from politics and the Minister’s control. The Board must have sufficient funds to discharge its responsibility without recourse to the Services or the Ministry for assistance.
There should also be an established Para-Military Council to be chaired by the Vice President with Minister of Interior as his Deputy. Other members should be the National Security Adviser, the Comptrollers-General of the Services and the Director General of the SSS. The Council should approve strategic policies for the Services, make recommendation for the appointments and removals of the heads of the Services to the President approve development plans and general operational guidelines including scheme of work and conditions of Service for personnel of the Services.
The Minister of Interior should continue with his legally assigned duties (for Immigration Service)of granting and administering expatriate quota and its related items, approving special immigrant and residential statuses, citizenship matters and negotiating national and international bilateral and multilateral agreements ,etc. With clear separation of duties and responsibilities, future Ministers will not have such unholy grip of the Services like Abba Moro does.
May I also draw the attention of the Federal Government to the Presidential order that a committee be constituted under the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission to conduct the recruitment for the Immigration Service and to say in my opinion that it is wrongful and illegal. The President under the existing law has no power for such intervention. Section 4 of Decree No 14 of 11th July, 1986 establishing the Board has vested to it:
All powers vested to the Minister of Interior in section 5 and 6 of the 1963 Immigration Act.
All powers vested in the President and Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and the federal Civil Service Commission in section 15 and 16 of the Prisons Act, 1972.
Those powers being exercised by the Federal Civil Service Commission under Para. 3, part 1 of the Third Schedule of the 1979 Constitution to appoint and exercise disciplinary control of the staff of the Services.
I am sure even with several amendments to this Act because of new entrants of the newly created Services and the democratization of government, this section still subsists. By virtue of this law, it appears, therefore, that the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission is an alien to the mandate and powers of the Board like the Abba Moro’s appointed consultant, and cannot, therefore, conduct recruitment for any of the Services on behalf of the Board. If an outsider’s assistance is needed, it has to be so approved and appointed by the Board. Illegal action cannot be corrected with another illegality especially in a democratic setting where the rule of law is supreme. If the Presidential directive is implemented, it can be challenged in the Court of Law.
I recall that in the 1990s during Babagida’s Military regime when the late Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman, the radical A.B.U lecturer, became a sort of “thorn in the neck” to the administration especially with what the regime considered as dangerous influence he had on students, the Government decided to remove him from the University. At that time the Universities Councils were dissolved and Professor Jibril Aminu as Minister of Education was said to be in direct control of the Universities. He, therefore, signed a letter retiring Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman from the service of the University. The radical lecturer challenged the Minister’s action in Court. In its judgment the court ruled that Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman was not an employee of the Ministry of Education but that of the University Council and the Statutes of the University had not delegated to the Minister such powers to be exercised in the absence of a functional Council. The retirement was therefore, declared illegal, null, void and of no effect whatsoever. It is instructive to learn from that lesson.
Now back to Abba Moro. With the recent development it is obvious that he is no longer fit to continue as Minister of Interior. Apart from his serious misconduct of arranging a fake recruitment exercise, causing the death of innocent souls, defrauding thousands of young Nigerians One Thousand Naira each, crimes that would have earned him death penalty in countries like China and North Korea or life imprisonment in democratic countries that are serious in fighting corruption, there are at least three more reasons why he cannot function again as effective Minister of Interior.
His exposed uncontrolled greed and incompetence have now been established and have dented his image and removed his moral authority for effective supervision and guidance of the Security Agencies under his Ministry. He is now a wounded lion whose overbearing ego has been completely depleted.
The working relationship between him, the Board and the Immigration Service has been irreparably damaged and the trust and confidence necessary for harmonious official interaction between them eroded. Even with the disciplinary orientation of the officers of the Para-Military Services, it will be difficult for them to accord his person the usual honour, respect and courtesies his office deserves.
If he continues as Minister, he will certainly embark on a revenge mission, unleashing vendetta and witch-hunting of officials he will perceive as his enemies for not only their refusal to cooperate with him at his difficult moment but also for their patriotic disassociation from his greedy misadventure. The tension that will be created and its effect on the administration will better be imagined especially with our current security challenges.
Moro has to go for the necessary maintenance of a healthy working environment in the Ministry and the Para-Military Services. Let him go and pursue his rumored gubernatorial ambition for which he is alleged to be desperate “to make money” for his campaign project.
ADO A. JA’AFAR, FPA, MNIM, Assistant Comptroller-General of Immigration (rtd.)
