By Ishaya Ibrahim
Acting News Editor
There are jitters in the ranks in the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) as holders of fake qualifications were asked to retire before April 15 or face a double whammy of dismissal and prosecution.
Another kind of unease pervades the Nigeria Prisons Service (NPS), where there is a jostle to succeed Controller General of Prisons (CGP), Peter Ekpendu, who retires on May 17.
Interior Minister, Abdulrahman Dambazau, gave the directive to the NIS sequel to the certificates and credentials verification in 2014 which discovered that 60 per cent of employees possess forged certificates.
The report of that screening was shelved by former Interior Minister, Abba Moro, allegedly because many of his cronies, including his special adviser on immigration matters (name withheld), hold “Toronto degrees”, an Immigration source told TheNiche.
Retirement age may catch up with Abeshi
Those who falsified their academic qualifications and age are anxiously awaiting the result of the verification which ended on Friday, April 15.
The exercise is meant to fish out those who forged certificates to get promotion and those who trimmed down their age to remain in service.
Sources said the first victim may be Comptroller General, Martins Abeshi. He was due for retirement in October 2015, having attained the statutory age of 60 and also exceeded 35 years in service.
But, curiously, he has refused to retire.
Dambazau steps in
The NIS issued a circular advising officers with dubious certificates to retire on their own or face dismissal and prosecution.
The circular, dated April 1, was signed by Assistant Comptroller General, Raymond Jaja, on behalf of Abeshi.
It said: “[Dambazau] has directed that officers/men holding and parading fake certificates purported to have been issued by tertiary institutions be given a soft landing to retire from service honourably between now and April 15, 2016.
“And that any officer whose certificates are eventually certified to have been issued outside the tertiary institutions so claimed would not only face dismissal from service, but also be prosecuted in line with the provisions of chapter 030402(a) of the Public Service.”
The NIS had said in a notice to all zonal commands on March 29 that a team of four officers would visit each command from April 4 to verify the certificates and credentials of all officers (senior) and men (junior).
All employees were asked to be physically present as documents would not be accepted through proxies.
Anxiety and confusion best described the disposition of officers at zonal commands nationwide where the exercise took place between Monday, April 4 and Friday, April 8.
The insistence that officers be physically present compelled the attendance of those who were used to doing documentation by proxy.
Businesses such as photocopying of documents, passport photography, and food selling boomed when TheNiche visited the zonal command in Alagbon Close, Ikoyi, Lagos during the week.
Most officers wore long faces. One told TheNiche jokingly, “This is a survival race, heads will roll and we do not know who will be involved.”
Thirty controllers were deployed to different zonal commands on Thursday, April 14 to oversee the sack of those who forged certificates. The posting order, signed by Abeshi, was with immediate effect.
Among those posted were TFA Olaleye, who was moved from Lagos Seaport Command to Zone F headquarters; and D. Barko, posted out of Seme to Gombe Command and replaced by PS Sakaba. (See full list).
The document screening coincided with an Immigration stakeholders’ conference in Lafia, where issues about the service were discussed.
Some officers said the postings released were a fallout of the Lafia confab, others said they were in response to the screening and an attempt to place fresh faces at Immigration offices dented by corrupt officers.
When contacted for comment, NIS Public Relations Officer, Ekpedeme King, a deputy comptroller, feigned ignorance of the verification, saying, “I have not seen that.”
Forgery galore
Nigeria’s paramilitary bodies, including the NIS, do not classify officers with Higher National Diploma (HND) as graduates. The careers of those in this category are stunted, and some spend 20 years as inspectors and retire in the rank.
The frustration pushes many to procure fake certificates to move ahead in the job.
In the Nigeria Prisons Service (NPS), about 300 officers with HND were found to have submitted fake degree certificates to become superintendents. The authorities reverted them to their former ranks.
The situation is worse in Immigration.
“One of them became a graduate in 2005 but had GCE (General Certificate of Education) in 2007. She cannot speak good English. She was employed with a fake certificate.
“One at Tin Can Island Port claimed she had a Master’s degree in 1985 from an Italian university. But she sat for GCE in 2005,” the source said.
TheNiche could not verify her name or her degree from the website of the university as the website is in Italian and a telephone call was answered by a lady who spoke in Italian.
The officer (named withheld), an assistant comptroller, was contacted by our reporter. But rather than respond to the allegation, she abused him with unprintable curses.
It was learnt that some of the officers gained admission into the university they claimed they attended with three GCE or West African Examination Council (WAEC) subjects – instead of the statutory minimum five.
Our findings also showed several cases of officers claiming states where they do not hail from in order to secure both employment and promotion.
Big wigs pulling the strings
Godfatherism is crippling the NIS, said sources who spoke anonymously because they are not authorised to speak to the media.
“If you tell a junior officer to do this, he won’t do it because he believes he has a godfather. If you try to discipline, you get calls from senators,” a source lamented.
TheNiche had on September 7, 2014 reported discontent among officers who complained of favouritism for Idomas, the tribesmen of Moro.
“Go to the Ministry of Interior and you will think you are in an Idoma village.
“This is the result of so many middle aged Idoma villagers employed by Moro and dumped in the ministry doing nothing at the expense of younger and able-bodied Nigerians looking for work,” a source alleged at the time.
“Junior officers from his tribe were not only promoted over their superiors but were posted to choice stations in all the services.
“He promoted a comptroller of fire to comptroller general. The only qualification the man had was that he was Idoma.”
Another source alleged that a comptroller is an attache at the Nigerian High Commission in London against the rule.
“Only officers below the rank of assistant comptroller go for such postings. Some of them have been there for over five years instead of the maximum duration of four years. The reason is the estacode (allowances paid to them in dollars).
“In the last promotion exercise, Moro only promoted people on foreign postings. He said because they were on national assignment. People who are paid in dollars!”
Abandoned to corrupt conduct
Infrastructure in the NIS is zero, the source said, citing Lagos State Command with only one functional vehicle.
“We don’t have barracks. We don’t have office accommodation. Many of our officers sit under the tree. We provide our generators to power offices. We don’t have arms.”
He disclosed that the landed properties of the NIS have been converted to private estates.
“The Rivers State government gave land to Prisons, Immigration, and Customs. Other services have utilised their own. But Immigration failed to use its own.
“And after lying waste for many years, the Rivers State government reclaimed it and used it for the accommodation of its sanitation authority.”
The source recounted that Ibeju Lekki Council in Lagos donated a land to Immigration two years ago, but “this land can no longer be accounted for.”
He added: “When people are posted, they don’t go because money will change hands. Some officers have served for 30 years and they are still in Lagos.
“You post somebody out of passport office, in less than one month, he or she is back.”
In the running for CGP
In the NPS, there are five main contenders for the post of CGP, in place of Ekpendu. The battle is among assistant controllers general (ACGs) and deputy controllers general (DCGs).
Petitions are already flying around as the gladiators try to outwit one another by throwing brickbats.
Bala Salihi
Some of the officers lining up for the plum job include Bala Salihi, an ACG who is the acting head of the inmate training division. He is from Yobe State.
A N55 million suit has been filed against him by Coscharis Motors over a business transaction that went sour.
The legal battle is over non-payment of the balance of N54 million by the Nigeria Prison Service (NPS) in a contract given to Coscharis Motors to supply 3,000 motorcycles valued at N330 million.
Coscharis had petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and accused Salihi of pocketing N54 million, the balance for 1,160 motorcycles it supplied to NPS Bauchi State Zonal Command in 2010 when Salihi was the zonal controller.
But Salihi described as blackmail and mischief, allegation that he diverted money for the 172 motorcycles in contention, insisting that the documents tendered by Coscharis are forged.
Aminu Suly
Next to him is Aminu Suly, a DCG from Bauchi State who was retired in 2014 by the Goodluck Jonathan administration to pave the way for Ekpendu to be appointed CGP.
But in December 2015, the Muhammadu Buhari administration reappointed him DCG in circumstances that have no precedence.
Sources said Suly’s continued stay in office is illegal because going by Section 29 of the Revised Public Service Rules, he ought to have retired on January 1, 2016 when he clocked eight years as a director.
They recalled that this provision was used to retire Adams Jagafa, a DCG, eight years ago.
Jafara Ahmed
Another officer in contention for CGP is Jafaru Ahmed, an ACG from Kebbi State. Jafaru is considered a hard working officer but his major shortcoming is that he allegedly falsified his age.
By the record in the NPS, Jafaru was born on September 30, 1956 but has changed the date first to 1957 and then to 1959.
TheNiche learnt that false declaration of age is also very rampant among senior officers in the NPS. That is why, according to our source, many of these old men who have changed their ages cannot give service but point out that of Jafaru.
D.M. NataAllah
The next contender is D.M. NataAllah, an ACG. He is the latest graduate of the National Institute, Kuru and is the commandant of Prisons Staff College, Kaduna.
Sources alleged that he lacks charisma and administrative skill to take on the huge task of running the Prisons.
Dorothy Atagiri
There is also Dorothy Atagiri, an ACG. Many newspaper articles have pleaded her case but many officers alleged that she has no skill to manage the NPS.
But the major case against her is that she supports her husband who was retired in the public service reforms of 2006 but refused to leave.
The man reportedly locked up the deputy command’s quarters at the Prisons Staff College, Kaduna up till this day in disregard of public service rules.
“That the prisons in Nigeria is facing very difficult times is stating the obvious. What is less obvious is that the prisons need a forward-looking and informed leadership that will reform the prisons according to the change mantra of this present administration,” a source said.
Plummeting fortunes
There is general agreement that the fortunes of the prisons have plummeted over the past few years. While some cite poor funding as the reason, insiders insist it is poor leadership.
Officers interviewed in Lagos moaned that they have never had it so bad. They complained of a lack of basic necessities to manage prisoners’ welfare.
They said they cannot take prisoners to court because the fund is not there, and that there are no drugs in the clinics, where even water is also a problem in many cases. Other prisons across the country expressed the same concerns.
Matters are not helped by the congestion in the prisons among awaiting trial inmates, which has made managing prison yards hell on earth.
“The need for a leadership that repositions the prisons for effective management requires that the usual Nigerian factor does not play a apart in the selection of the next CGP.
“The growing awaiting trial congestion in the prisons not only calls for the appointment of competent officers who can face these challenges but those who can champion the reform of the prisons that seem so elusive after many years of mouthing prison reforms,” the source told TheNiche.