Dangiwa’s goofs on Dikko
But beneath it all, lays a whole pack of self-serving mischief and distortion that border on deliberate misinformation. Significantly also, the retired Colonel’s outpour has raised quite a number of questions as to who Dangiwa Umar really is and whether or not he knows the process through which he came into the limelight by becoming […]
But beneath it all, lays a whole pack of self-serving mischief and distortion that border on deliberate misinformation. Significantly also, the retired Colonel’s outpour has raised quite a number of questions as to who Dangiwa Umar really is and whether or not he knows the process through which he came into the limelight by becoming a state governor in the 90s.
Part of Umar’s remarks were that Dikko’s appointment was not in order because according to him, the man was not qualified to be promoted Comptroller-General (CG) because there were other Assistant Comptrollers General and Deputy Comptrollers General above him when the office of the CG became vacant. Secondly, Dangiwa said that Dikko ought not to have been made Assistant Controller General in the first place because he jumped the hierarchical arrangement of the service by not becoming comptroller.
According to him, Dikko ought to have been made Comptroller before becoming Deputy Controller General, then Assistant Comptroller General before he would be seen as competent for appointment to the position of Comptroller-General.
To the ordinary mind, Umar’s intellectual exercise may appear convincing, but the reality of practical application which includes the colonel’s own experience with military appointments, prove otherwise.
Unless Colonel Umar is saying that the hierarchical arrangement within the military is distinct from the one that obtains in other Para-military services like the police and customs or that he alone has the right to enjoy such accelerated appointments to the exclusion of all else, I beg to disagree with his unsolicited observations.
Our point of departure is as deep as the sea and so wide too. For one, I want to believe that the hierarchal arrangement that prevails in the military is the same as the one that pertains in all other paramilitary services including of course the Nigeria Customs Service.
And while this position remains the true position, how then can the Colonel hope with any success to justify his own speedy appointments while in the military and condemn the same pattern of appointment extended to others?
Record shows that Umar was only a major when the then military leadership catapulted him to the governor of the most important state in northern Nigeria, Kaduna.
He was made governor of Kaduna State which has more military formations in the North while wearing the rank of a major and at a time when all his much more senior officers were around and none of them objected.
Kaduna, which Umar knows well, hosts the Nigeria Defence Academy, the then Nigeria Army School of Infantry (NASI), The Command and Staff College, Jaji and the 1 Division headquarters of the Nigeria Army, just to mention but a few.
Each of those formations as we all know and Umar knows too, was headed by a general who is five ranks above that of Umar when he was made governor.
And we all know that as state governor, Umar, a Major then, had the opportunity to summon all the lieutenant-Colonels, Colonels, Brigadier-General, Major Generals, Lieutenant-Generals and the Generals to Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, yet all these officers did not as much as wink while that junior officer held sway.
It is therefore questionable if Umar, himself a major beneficiary of such benevolent appointments should be the one to raise eyebrows when Alhaji Dikko is made CG of customs in an exercise believed to be even more democratic, transparent and closer to due process than the exercise that made Umar governor of Kaduna state. I think those who hide behind glass houses ought not to be the ones to start throwing stones. Let Dangiwa Umar worry about his present moral dilemma allow other people to concentrate on their duties.
Just for the records and for the likes of Col Umar to take dressing. The President and Commander-In-Chief has the absolute right to appoint a competent officer from among the serving officers of a Para-military organization like the customs service and even the military to head the organization. What is very important is for the officer so appointed to be able to effectively head the organization.
Dikko took over the Nigeria customs service at a time it was bedeviled by serious cases of indiscipline, corruption, poor attitude to work, total failure of professional approach to work, the near absence and in some cases total decay of essential facilities for the discharge of custom duty. Within the few weeks of Dikko’s assumption of office as Comptroller-General, serious steps are being taken to address all the problems.
Dr. Farouk writes from Kalambaina Estate, Sokoto