Nigeria Immigration Service Promotion Exercise Stirs Anger, Controversy

Posted by Ignatius Okpara Exclusive Reports, Featured, Latest Headlines Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

…….As Aggrieved Officers Vow To Expose Comptroller General’s Corrupt Acts.

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – The recent list of Senior officers promoted in the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), surreptitiously released by the Agency’s Board has sparked off anger and outrage, as Aggrieved Officers of the federal government para- Military Organization have accused the board and Comptroller General, Mr. Idris Isah Jere, of carrying out the exercise with impunity and corrupt manner.

African Examiner investigation revealed that the development has also plunged the Agency into palpable tension as some of the aggrieved Officers have vowed to seek redress legally and expose some of the alledged corrupt activities of the Comptroller General, Idris Jere.

The said controversial lists was released by the Board which is incharge of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps NSCDC, Correctional Service , Fire and Immigration Services NIS.

“Curiously, for the first time in the history of the Service, the promotion was never made public ” a top Staff of the NIS who craved anonymity told our Correspondent .

“Rather than make it open, the management of the Service decided to contact those selected in the promotion exercise through telephone calls as against the usual practice of displaying the list of promoted officers on the notice board at the Service headquarters.

“When the management secretly invited the affected officers who reported to the Headquarters of the Service for decoration with their new ranks of Assistant Comptroller General and Comptroller of Immigration Service respectively, it was discovered to the utmost shock of officers and men of the Service that a particular group of more qualified officers who sat for the promotion interview were denied merited promotion.

“This was particularly the case with the more senior and well qualified officers of the rank of Comptroller who sat for promotion examinations to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General of Immigration.

“In this category, all officers of the 20th Basic Course recruited in 1988, were left out of the promotion list in favour of their juniors, some of whom were recruited in 1991 and 1993.

“Upon inquiry, it was surprisingly revealed that the more senior and qualified officers were dropped from the promotion exercise because they have less than six months to their retirement from the Service.

‘This arbitrary action is not only absurd, but upsetting to say the least. The officers met all the stipulated criteria before they were invited to the promotion interview in September 2022.

“They sat for the Computer Based Test (CBT) which the Board and management of NIS introduced for the first time claiming that they wanted the results released without delay.

‘Unfortunately and without any plausible reasons, the result was not released until last week when the management, contrary to normal practice, contacted by telephone those they deliberately chose to promote without any known standards in the history of the Service.

“This is the highest level of all the impunity that appears to be the hallmark of the present management of the Nigeria Immigration Service.

“Ironically, because the management of Nigeria Immigration Service had a skeleton in its cupboard, it went ahead to release the promotion list suspected to be doctored a day after the decoration ceremony.

“This was against the practice of releasing authentic promotion list ahead of official decoration exercises.

“It was discovered thereafter that Comptrollers Ekeoba KJ and Okekunle WT who are juniors to all the eligible Comptrollers of the 20th Basic Course who sat for the promotion interview were promoted to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General despite the fact that both have less than six months to retire from service.

“Similarly, not less than six Deputy Comptrollers of Immigration who have either retired or are due for retirement in two or three and four months time were promoted to the rank of Comptroller of Immigration Service.

“In one other highly shocking instance, an officer, Aliyu Jika, who has died was promoted to the rank of Comptroller.

“There were some others who did not attend the promotion interview but got promoted. One of them is ACI Kofo who was promoted to the rank of Deputy Comptroller of Immigration. There were several cases of absurdities identified in the recent promotion exercise.

“In all promotion examinations conducted by the Board for all the agencies under its authority since its creation, this level of arbitrariness had never happened.

“The questions on the lips of officers and men of the Service therefore, are: why is this obnoxious policy and action suddenly coming up now, long after officers had been invited for interview?

“Why did the Board and management not exclude officers who had less than six months to work in the Service from attending the interview in the first place?

The Sourceasef: “Why did the Board and management not release the result of the interview either in September or October when many of the affected officers had more than six months to serve?

“Why did the Board promote Comptrollers who are junior to their colleagues despite the fact that they have less than six months? is it not against common sense and the law of natural justice to introduce midway conditions that were not part of any engagement?

“Does the Comptroller General of Immigration Service, Mr. Idris Isah Jere have any justification to deprive officers whose names appeared in the eligibility list for promotion and who duly attended promotion exercise on the ground that they do not have up to six months to stay in the Service when his statutory period of service had long elapsed?

” Is Mr. Jere as Comptroller General of Immigration not the one allowing officers who had either attained the statutory age of 60 or 35 years in service to remain behind and be receiving salary from the government illegally?

“Under the leadership of Idris Jere as Comptroller General of Immigration reckless impunity has assumed provocative and intolerable dimensions.

“This act of denying a generation of officers their duly merited promotion is only a tip of the iceberg.

“Unfortunately, this particular outrageous act will be his Waterloo. He and the Board will be fully challenged on this inhuman action which is a terrible way to reward (or is it undeservedly punish?) officers who have sacrificed so much in the service of the fatherland.

“Throughout the leadership of all Comptrollers General before him, officers who met the stipulated period for promotion were allowed to sit for examination whether they had retired or were about to retire, and they were promoted for as long as they performed well.

“It’s anomalous for the Board and management of NIS to invite officers for promotion interview and after participating in the exercise, they turn round to deny all Officers of the 20th Basic Course promotion to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General of Immigration on the lame grounds that they have either retired or about to retire.

“This is grossly unacceptable and will surely be challenged. One of the affected officers had this to say:

“We had for long tolerated unjust treatment whereby juniors were unduly promoted alongside their seniors or even promoted ahead of their superiors.

“However, this time such an unfair and undesirable action in the twilight of our career will never go unchallenged”, disclosed an affected officer who preferred anonymity,

“The embittered officer went ahead to say; “besides challenging such unjust and unfair acts using the ambit of the law, we are going to expose all the illegal and criminal activities of the Comptroller General of Immigration to the world.

“He should begin to get ready to face anti-graft agencies to answer for all the atrocities he committed from his days in the NIS procurement division to date.

” Let him prepare to dance to the war drums which he started beating with the unreasonable denial of the rights of officers who have contributed significantly to the service of the nation. He has stretched his luck too far.” the Source declared.