Stop Custom’s selective promotion, Arewa youth tell FG

Arewa Youth Consultative Forum has appealed to the federal government, National Assembly and other relevant authorities to prevail upon Nigerian Custom Service (NCS) to revert the selective promotion of officers to avoid injustice.

AYCF said despite its plea to NCS on February 27, 2022, for the service to reconsider its controversial plan to promote officers who joined the service between 2009 and 2015, leaving behind those who joined the service between 1992 and 1994, the service has proceeded with the widely-condemned plan.

AYCF, in a statement signed by its National President, Alhaji Shettima Yerima, Sunday, said, “we call on the presidency, Secretary to Government of the Federation, the Head of Service of the Federation, the National Assembly, the Minister for Finance, Budget and National Planning, the Federal Character Commission, to swiftly move into action and correct this anomaly to ensure that the right thing is done to stop this national calamity.”

“The e argument by the Service, that the set of officers employed between 1992 and 1994 were employed as junior officers cannot stand. Most of them have improved their skill and capacity. You have among them PHD holders, Masters degree holders, graduates of multiple disciplines, members of different professional body.

“At point of promotion/elevation, the statutory requirement is not the qualification at the point of entry rather qualification at the point of promotion/elevation. That is why public and civil service pay much attention, plan and spend heavily on capacity building, training, etc. 

“Consequently, we wish to restate our stand against this policy that smacks of administrative abuse, injustice and to further declare as follows; that this selective exclusion in the name of elevation plan should be cancelled immediately, so that everybody can now be carried along.

“The gap or vacuum created due to embargo on employment in the service between 1994 and 2009 was not caused by the older officers and they should not be made to suffer for it, like sacrificial lambs. Evidently, this group of officers has already suffered a lot in the service, in the form of delay in promotion (some stayed up to eight years in one rank), poor remunerations, etc.

“That if this plan stands, it may breed indiscipline, low-morale, low-productivity, feeling of rejection, alienation, work at cross-purposes, low esteem, sabotage, dichotomy and failure in meeting up with targets.”