The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Wednesday announced the dismissal of an Assistant Comptroller General of Customs (ACG) Aminu Dahiru and also compulsorily retired another ACG, Bashir Abubakar, for what the service termed “act of negligence.”

In a statement signed on behalf of the Customs Comptroller General Hammed Ali, by the Service’s National Public Relations Officer, Deputy Comptroller Joseph Attah, and made available to newsmen, the NCS explained that the action, approved by its Board, is in-line with the reform agenda in the service.

Although the statement was silent on the offences leading up to the dismissal, the two senior officers, Abubakar and Dahiru, were about a month ago found culpable by a Disciplinary Committee set up by the Customs to investigate the affected officers over alleged official misconducts.

While Dahiru was dismissed for an alleged complicity in a botched smuggling of 295 trucks of petroleum products sometime in December 2019, while serving under the Joint Security Border Patrol, Abubakar on his part, was alleged to have maliciously ordered a botched raid on a warehouse of a prominent local rice dealer while searching for imported rice in Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari’s home town. Interestingly, just about two years ago, was celebrated by the Service for rejecting a $412,000 bribe from Tramadol drug traffickers.

In similar vein, the NCS Board (NCSB) also approved the appointment of five ACGs and promotion of 2,634 Officers. The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning and Chairman, NCS Board, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed, who presided over the meeting said decisions taken during the meeting were meant to ginger and move the Service forward in-terms of manpower and operations.

A breakdown of the 2,634 Officers whose promotion have 1st January 2019 as effective date includes 37 Deputy Comptrollers to Comptrollers of Customs; 110 Assistant Comptrollers of Customs to Deputy Comptrollers; 138 Chief Superintendent of Customs to Assistant Comptrollers; 93 Superintendent of Customs to Chief Superintendent of Customs; 93 Deputy Superintendent of Customs to Superintendent of Customs; 1, 224 Assistant Superintendent of Customs I to Deputy Superintendent of Customs; 475 Assistant Superintendent of Customs II to Assistant Superintendent of Customs I464 Inspector of Customs to Assistant Superintendent of Customs II. About 205 of those promoted are “Support Staff”.

Ahmed described the NCS as “Making Progress” and expressed the hope that the coming of the e-Customs will help improve NCS operations.