The refusal of some senior Customs officials to retire after reaching their due dates has prompted the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions to summon the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi, to appear before it on Tuesday next week.
According to a statement by Chooks Oko, Media Head of the Public Petitions Committee, Adeniyi is expected to answer a petition regarding the matter.
The petition, filed by Obasi-Pherson Help Foundation, alleged that certain Assistant Comptrollers and Comptrollers had refused to vacate their positions despite being due for retirement.
The affected officers were identified as Assistant Comptrollers Imam, Umar, and Egwu, as well as Comptrollers Awe, Fatia, and Faith.
The House stated that the Comptroller General has an obligation to clarify the situation to Nigerians.
“Nigerians deserve to know the truth of the matter and it is only the CG that can clarify the situation.
“We are elected to serve the people, and ensuring that all government agencies function effectively is part of that service.
“In this era when most of our youths are looking for jobs, it will be wrong for the older ones who are due for retirement to refuse to go,” said Mike Etaba, Chairman of the Committee on Public Petitions.
“That is not to say we shall take sides, far from it. We treat each case on merit, ensuring that justice is given at all times to the deserving,” he added.
In a related development, Oko revealed that the Committee has threatened to order the arrest of the Director General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) if she fails to personally appear to answer allegations of refusing to pay for a software development project deployed at the Commission by a private firm, Truid Limited.
The statement noted that Truid Limited has accused NIMC of breaching a licence agreement.
E. R. Opara, counsel for Truid Limited, explained that the company had funded, developed, and deployed a tokenisation system for NIMC without any financial obligation from the Commission.
The agreement allowed Truid to recover its investment through service provider patronage, with proceeds shared on an agreed ratio for an initial ten-year period from 2021.
However, the petition claims that the agreement has been disrupted since the appointment of the new NIMC Director General, who has allegedly sought to terminate it.
Reacting to arguments from both parties, Etaba criticised the continuous absence of the NIMC DG despite repeated invitations.
“If she fails to show up at the next hearing of this case, we’ll have no option but to ask the Inspector General of Police to bring her.
How can an official of government treat constituted authority with such levity? We can no longer condone such attitude,” he said.
