Details have emerged on why in less than two years after been celebrated as a poster boy of the anti-corruption fight for rejecting a $412,000 bribe from Tramadol drug traffickers, Bashir Abubakar, an Assistant Comptroller General (ACG), was on Thursday recommended for compulsory retirement from his job by the management of Nigeria Customs Service.
Abubakar was said to be recommended for sack due to alleged negligence, instead of corruption as reported by this magazine earlier.
Abubakar is one of two ACGs sanctioned by Customs management. Aminu Dahiru, the other ACG was recommended for dismissal for complicity in the cross border smuggling of refined petroleum products in a large convoy of oil tankers.
Other ranks and file personnel were also affected by the massive purge affected by the Customs high command on Thursday.
Abubakar’s sour tales started some time December 2019, when it was reported that a total of 140 bags of foreign rice were seized from one Alhaji Habu Sarkin-Fulani identified as President Muhammadu Buhari’s confidant by agents of the Border Drill Operations of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS). It was reported that the goods were seized at a warehouse in Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari’s hometown.
The NCS agents were said to have acted on a tip-off prompting them to storm Fegi Quarters in Daura to effect the seizure.
But an inside source who is conversant with the operation revealed that the news reports were misleading and contrary to what happened in Daura.
The source, while confirming the raid in Daura, stated that the owner of the controversial warehouse was actually a local rice dealer and had on his own applied to Customs headquarters to be allowed to move a large quantity of the product to be sold in the southern part of Nigeria. The product was said to have been sourced from rice farms in Kebbi and Sokoto states.
The source said the protocol of obtaining a permit from Customs, before movement of large bulk of local rice, was part of the anti-smuggling measures as some traders re-bag foreign rice in locally made sacks and distribute them as locally produced varieties.
Investigations revealed that on receiving the permit application from Sarkin-Fulani, the Customs high command in Abuja sent a signal to the Border Drill Team in that sector through Katsina Command of the Service. The signal instructed the team to proceed to the warehouse in Daura, inspect the rice and confirm that the consignment is of local variety before approval will be granted for evacuation.
It was discovered that the Controller in charge of the Katsina Command after alleged several attempts to reach ACG Abubakar on phone in order to transmit the signal from headquarters, decided to pass it directly to the field operations squad of the Border Drill.
It was gathered that the field operations squad misinterpreted the directive in the signal as a green light to raid the warehouse. The operatives, in commando-style with a convoy of five Toyota Hilux patrol trucks blaring sirens and armed to the teeth, stormed the warehouse with a blast of gunshots and other crowd pulling stunts. The raid unearthed only 140 50kg bags of foreign rice as against over 5,000 50kg bags of local rice stored in the warehouse.
Abubakar was said to have been in the dark of the developments as he did not order the raid since the content of the signal from the headquarters was not communicated to him due to the alleged unavailability of his phone lines.
The manner the warehouse was stormed attracted a large crowd. Some miscreants started hailing the operatives while pouring invectives on President Buhari and Sarkin-Fulani, falsely accusing the President of hypocrisy. The incident became a big embarrassment to President Buhari and the government. The scene attracted wide negative media coverage which the opposition mischievously leveraged to accuse the President of engaging in selective anti-corruption crusade.
BMWA gathered that as a result of the embarrassment, the Service set up a Disciplinary Panel that indicted Abubakar of negligence and recommended his compulsory retirement. ACG Abubakar was said to have put up a strong defence, even to the extent of producing his phone lines call logs to prove that no attempt was made to reach him on the said date and times, contrary to the claims of Katsina Area Controller.
However, the Customs management did not find his defence convincing. They as such, accepted the recommendation of the Disciplinary Panel, reasoning that a very senior officer heading such sensitive security-related operations is supposed to leave all his phones and other communication links accessible 24 hours. They concluded that the incident would have been avoided if the Controller in charge of Katsina had reached him. They labelled his alleged action as an act of gross negligence. They, therefore, recommended his compulsory retirement to the Customs Board, which is expected to convene this week.
The story of recommendation for compulsory retirement of ACG Bashir Abubakar was ironical, considering that his activities as Area Controller in Apapa Port brought a well celebrated national anti-corruption honour to the service. Though an inside source told our reporter that Abubakar got the award through highly unconventional means. The source said the Customs management never knew about Abubakar’s nomination for the award till its announcement. It said that Abubakar, in ambition to climb the pinnacle of his career which is the seat of Comptroller General, sidetracked established protocols and exploited his connections to a high presidency official to secure the award through the influence of the President’s late Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari. This wrinkled the management who felt slighted, as the protocol demanded he got the nomination through his organization.
Before Abubakar’s 40 containers haul, Nigeria has been battling with the scourge of drug abuse among the youths. Codeine, tramadol among other psychotropic substances have in recent years found their way into the closets and pockets of young Nigerians. And they have been abused in a great measure, causing colossal damage to lives.
The Federal Government did the obvious: banned the importation and local manufacture of these drugs. But because addiction does not bow to fiats and orders, demand for these drugs surged.
Importers had to respond to the increase in demand. It meant they had to import more drugs. The more they imported, the more money they made. This also meant that the more of such drugs they import, the more lives they waste. The ban means more stringent rules have to apply.
So, the importers were said to have approached Bashir Abubakar. He was Comptroller of Apapa Area Command, home to Nigeria’s busiest seaport. They allegedly offered him the jaw-dropping sum of $420,000 (N151 million) to allow them clear into the market 40 containers laden with Tramadol. But Abubakar apparently refused the bribe and seized the 40 units of 40ft containers of Tramadol and other pharmaceutical products with a Duty Paid Value of N7.3 billion.
The Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), while reacting to the seizure then, said: “the rejection of N150 million bribe presents a picture of a reformed NCS whose operatives are increasingly putting national interest above selves.”
The act also attracted national accolade and honour for Abubakar, which Abubakar was said to have sidetracked the Customs management in getting. President Muhammadu Buhari, while honouring him with the Integrity Award on Tuesday, November 19, said in a tweet that the customs officer was worthy of the award due to his fine example of incorruptibility which he said is worthy of emulation.
“Also found worthy of honour was Bashir Abubakar, an Asst Comptroller-General of Customs, who rejected a bribe of $412,000 per container offered him by drug traffickers seeking to bring 40 containers of Tramadol into Nigeria. A fine example of incorruptibility, worthy of emulation,” the tweet read.
Dahiru’s Fate Sealed Over 295 Released Oil Tankers
Dahiru who was Zonal Coordinator in charge of Zone A in Lagos before deployment to the Abuja headquarters as ACG in charge of Enforcement, Investigation and Inspection, he was indicted in the unauthorised release of 295 seized oil tankers that were illegally moved across to the Republic of Benin.
President Muhammadu Buhari had in February ordered that immediate appropriate disciplinary actions should be meted out to culpable officers involved in the illegal release of 295 smuggled petroleum tankers without due authorisation.
Some security officials charged with the responsibility of protecting Nigeria’s borders had on December 17, 2019, illegally released the tankers into the Republic of Benin without approval from the appropriate authorities. ACG Dahiru, who was the Coordinator of the sector that passed the trucks, was said to have through text messages and phone calls given approval for the illegal cross border passage.
The President, who found the incident “disheartening,” directed the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, to set up a Board of Inquiry to investigate the crime.
It was recommended to the President that all officials (civilian or security operatives) found to have connived to undermine government’s efforts should be withdrawn from the border drill and severely sanctioned by their respective organisations.
Having accepted the recommendations, the President directed the immediate redeployment from the border area of all indicted operatives.
“He has also directed that their respective organisations should mete immediate appropriate disciplinary actions to them,” said a statement by Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina.
A highly placed Customs officer who pleaded anonymity informed our reporter that the management recommended the dismissal of Dahiru based on the findings of the National Security Adviser.
