A former military governor of Kaduna State, Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar yesterday gave a new perspective on the recent face-off between the Senate and Customs Comptroller General Hamid Ali.
He said it was all about the Customs seizure of a huge consignment of rice imported by a company owned by an influential member of the Senate, but which the company declared as yeast in a bid to avoid paying the appropriate import duty on the rice.
Umar said the same senator is the brain behind a company involved in the controversial $34million Calabar port dredging contract.
The outspoken former governor, in a statement in Kaduna, said the conduct of the Senate on these and similar matters seem to suggest that Senators “might be on a mission to crash the federal governments’ war against corruption using the power of ‘oversight’ as cover.”
He, therefore, wants Senate President Bukola Saraki to rein in Senators who are stepping out of line especially those in the Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariffs.
He cited the Committee’s handling of matters concerning the Nigeria Ports Authority and the Customs which, in his view, leaves room for suspicion.
Umar asked Nigerians to actively support the Comptroller-General of Customs, Hamid Ali, the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Magu, the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Hajiya Hadiza Bala Usman, and a former BPP DG, Emeka Nzeh.
“Incidents such as these are the reason the Nigerian public feels let down by our Parliament. They are the reason why a whole lot of Nigerians take a dim view of members of the National Assembly,” Umar said.
“Some even believe the conduct of our legislators is a major factor holding Nigeria down; why it is a laughing stock among the nations of the world.
“It is the duty of all Nigerians to demand correct conduct from all public officials, including from members of the National Assembly; especially the Senate.
“Senator Bukola Saraki, the Senate President, must enforce discipline among his colleagues. No member of a committee, much less a chairman, should remain in his duty post once credible information about possible crime is received on the person.
“We need not remind our political leaders, most of all our legislators, that punishment always follow excess.”
He asked Nigerians to take interest in the activities of the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariffs, especially its relationship with the Nigeria Ports Authority.
His words: “There are good reasons why Nigerians should take more than a passing interest in the controversy generated by the actions of members of the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariffs and that of the Nigeria Ports Authority.
“If the reports in the media are true, the matter goes beyond the victimization of one organ of government by another.”
On the recent humiliation of Col. Hamid Ali (rtd) by the Senate he said it all started with the October/November, 2016, importation of 1,200 metric tons of rice in thirty, 40-foot containers by a rice trading company owned by an influential senator.
According to Umar, the company in its attempt to evade paying the correct custom duties declared the ‘rice’ consignment as ‘yeast’.
“The goods were later intercepted and seized on the orders of the Comptroller-General of Customs. Unfortunately, this seemingly patriotic action by a public officer was seen as an affront to one senior member of the National Assembly.
“A Senator, the leader of the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise & Tariff, wrote the CGC demanding that the consignment be released forthwith, on the dubious claim that he had investigated the matter and had found the importer blameless. His findings? That it was the clearing Agent not the importer that called the goods ‘yeast’ instead of ‘rice’!
“The CGC brushed aside this incredible story; as any right thinking person would do. But to the shock of all Nigerians, all hell broke loose. The Senate Committee then summoned him to appear before them in uniform- seeing that as a retired army colonel, the CGC had refrained from wearing the Customs uniform.
“He was also directed to answer a long list of queries by this same angry panel. In the end, he was dragged before the Senate at plenary, put through a cruel inquisition, publicly humiliated and dismissed as ‘not fit to hold public office’.
“Fast-forward to last week.
“This time, a dubious scheme was uncovered in which a subsidiary company of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), went into a joint venture with a private company to manage the Calabar Port.
“Both the NPA subsidiary, called Calabar Channel Management (CCM) and the private company, Niger Global Engineering & Technical Co. Ltd, were incorporated together in 2014, just for this deal. The purported JV partner was then awarded a contract to dredge the Calabar Channel; a contract the Bureau of Public Procurement was to condemn as violating all due processes.
“This did not discourage them from demanding and getting a whopping $12.5million upfront payment from the NPA or asking for a purported balance of $22million.
“In the meantime, a rash of petitions and reports had inundated the NPA against this contract, with many alleging it to be a bogus scam to siphon public funds.
“The Bureau of Public Procurement was the first to cry out, saying both the award of the dredging contract and the initial payment of over N4billion to Messrs Niger Global Engineering & Technical Co. Ltd, were done in violation of the law. “Even worse, all efforts of the new management of the NPA under Ms. Hadiza Bala Usman, to find evidence of the dredging work purported to have been done in the Calabar Channel at the time the company claimed to have done so, was unsuccessful.
“That is not all. There was also the report by a consultant that advised against a joint venture partnership for the purpose of managing the Calabar port. Their reason was simply that maritime activities in the Calabar port was too low, that a joint venture scheme as obtained in Lagos and Bony was unsustainable.
“Faced with these negative outcomes, the NPA management under Ms. Bala Usman decided that national interest would be better served if the JV scheme as well as the so-called dredging project are terminated.
“On their part, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, have moved in, with a mission to “recover public funds collected for job not done”.
“Now, the name of the person driving this scheme is quite instructive going by the very loud and sustained counter attacks being mounted against the public officers; officers that insist that right things are done.”
Umar said the person is an influential Senator who owns the rice company that brought in the confiscated consignment, and also Niger Global & Engineering Co. Technical Ltd.
Umar added: “Nigerians must not leave the likes of Hamid Ali, Ibrahim Magu, Hadiza Bala Usman,(former BPP DG) Emeka Nzeh et al at the mercy of these strange lawmakers; politicians that have demonstrated time and again that they are in politics to serve themselves and themselves alone.
“The experience of Hadiza Bala Usman, the new M.D of the NPA, is particularly sad. The more she tries to fight, to reduce graft and perfidy, the more determined they seem to mobilise against her, to neutralise her and see her back.
“They want her out because, they now claim, she is ‘too young’ to manage a complex organisation such as NPA – even though she is past 40 years of age. Unashamed, they question the wisdom of appointing a woman to such a post – her training and experience counting for nothing; apparently.”
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