A Northern group, the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, has asked the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd), to urgently cancelled the ongoing promotion exercise in the Nigeria Custom Service, saying the exercise is ‘selective’.
According to the group, the current policy of promotion in the service smacks administrative abuse, injustice and can breed indiscipline in the system.
The National President of the AYCF, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, in a statement in Kaduna on Sunday, insisted that the Buhari regime needed to wade into the matter.
The AYCF had faulted the policy of alleged selective promotion of officers and men of the Nigeria Custom Service, calling on the authority of the Custom to halt the exercise for the sake of institutional growth.
But the Northern group, however, noted that the NCS refused to heed to its plea over what it termed the controversial policy of elevation of certain group of officers in the service.
Consequently, the AYCF called on the relevant federal agencies, especially the Presidency to wade into the matter so as to safe the nation from national calamity.
The statement read, “Information available to Arewa Youth Consultative Forum(AYCF) confimed that despite our plea to Nigeria Customs Service on 27th February 2022 to reconsider its controversial plan to elevate certain group of officers who joined the service between 2009 and 2015 and leaving behind those who joined the service between 1992 and 1994, the service has proceeded with the wiidely-condemned plan.
“We wish to re-state 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.
“We still call on the relevant Federal Government agencies to swiftly move into action and ensure that the right thing is done and correct this anomaly.
“The presidency, the Secretary to
Government of Federation, the Head of Service of the Federation, the National Assembly, the Minister for Finance Budget and National Planning, the Federal Character Commission, among others, should do the needful to stop this national calamity and right all the wrongs.”
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