Senate vs Hameed Ali: At whose expense?
Nothing hampers, frustrates or delays a nation’s quest for meaningful development than having its affairs presided over by individuals who are in public office for all other reasons, but service to humanity. We keep running in circles and claim to be making steady progress. No serious nation exerts its precious time, energy and scarce resources […]
Nothing hampers, frustrates or delays a nation’s quest for meaningful development than having its affairs presided over by individuals who are in public office for all other reasons, but service to humanity. We keep running in circles and claim to be making steady progress. No serious nation exerts its precious time, energy and scarce resources on inanities and hopes to become great. Reality.
Truth is, the on-going face-off between the Nigerian Senate and the Controller General of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), is indicative of how the ruling elite are more interested in wasting our precious time and resources on insignificant issues at the expense of more serious and attention-seeking challenges. No sane character chases after rats with his house on fire.
The squabble isn’t about how to solve some fundamental problems bedevilling the Nigerian Customs Service. It is not on concerted efforts to plug leakages in that cesspool of corruption called NCS. Also, it is not about how to reposition the NCS to guarantee efficient service delivery. Regrettably, all the hoopla, claptrap and drama is on the Senate’s insistence that Col. Ali MUST appear before it in full Customs uniform, a request the CG of Customs sees as a tall order.
The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), like most MDAs is without doubt sick and in dire need of urgent overhaul. I had expected our lawmakers exercised their power of oversight on a more productive and development-driven issue like stamping out endemic corruption in the NCS than dwelling on an inconsequential issue as wearing of Customs uniform.
In the ongoing clash of ego, the utmost losers will be ordinary Nigerians like you and I who have no direct or unfettered access to the nation’s commonwealth. Both the Senators and Hameed Ali belong to the same class. They only share same geographical space with us, we live in different worlds.
While our collective survival as a nation is dependent on their actions and inactions, the positions they occupy and the perks of office they enjoy precludes them from the existential realities we go through as ordinary citizens. These elite enjoy all the essential services like electricity, water, security and accommodation that ordinary Nigerians like you and I struggle through our nose to have.
So, the clash is not about how to evolve policies and progammes that would make life a little more comfortable for Nigerians. It is largely a clash of ego. Even though the Senators make haste to tell us that the struggle is how to protect the integrity of the Senate as Nigeria’s highest law-making body, we truly know that the entire imbroglio is fuelled more by personal not altruistic reasons. Hameed Ali, an egoistic fellow, on his part sees the entire game as a plot to ridicule him as a retired army officer and former MILAD.
Where is the place of seriousness in our activities when we learnt that the Senate asked Hameed Ali, who was originally billed to address it on his controversial but now-suspended duty payment for old vehicles issue as well as provide insights into the activities of the NCS in the last one year, to return to his office simply because he wasn’t clad in Customs uniform! Who does that? Are we really serious about putting Nigeria on the path of development? I doubt it.
Our elite are moreorless entertainers who see us as willing spectators. They know we all love to watch, analyse and debate over the drama they stage every other day. Little wonder they take us for granted. Expectedly, some of us are already counting down to Wednesday when Hameed Ali is billed to return to the Senate. We are anxious and can’t wait to see who will eventually eat the humble pie. Crazy.
How does the face-off address the endemic corruption and under-the-table dealings that go unchecked in the Nigerian Customs Service? Instead of endorsing their foolhardy, let’s challenge them to exchange blows on issues that have direct bearing on our lives as citizens. A Hameed Ali wearing or not wearing Customs uniform is no solution to the soaring prices of food items in the market. Fact.
Yunusa wrote this piece from Abuja.