Since her appointment as Acting Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Mrs Carol Wura-ola Adepoju has continued to court controversies that tend to not only put the Service in bad light, but also affect the service from achieving its mandate.
Under her watch, the public rating of the NIS has fallen so low. Her actions do not allign with the renewed hope agenda of the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Mrs Carol Wura-ola Adepoju appears to be a clog in the wheel of progress at the NIS.
To the surprise and dismay of officers and men of NIS, the husband of the Acting Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has allegedly taken over the day-to-day running of the affairs of the NIS, as he is seen giving orders to, and beckoning on officers and men on a daily basis.
Mr Adepoju has gone the extra mile, by situating a permanent office for himself on the premises of the NIS Headquarters in Abuja, where he daily dishes out marching orders to officers and men. He is at the helms of affairs and runs the NIS, while his wife, Mrs Carol Wura-ola Adepoju (the Acting CG) is behind the scene.
It is on record, that the Acting CG has been bragging at every little opportunity to all and sundry that this is the turn of the Yoruba ethnic stock and that nothing can happen and that she is in control and, as such, threatens contractors alike, if any one of them refuses to tow her line.
She has nicknamed them “disloyal contractors.” She has, as well, boasted severally that, she will be confirmed as a substantive CG and given extension of service when, even the rank and file are aware that she has outlived her usefulness at the NIS.
It will be recalled that the Federal Character Commission (FCC) recently wrote a letter to the Ministry of Interior, informing the Ministry that she violated the Federal Character Commission’s extant rules of recruitment of candidates into the NIS and she has arbitrarily given employment to select people from her geo-political zone, not minding the query issued to her by the FCC..
It is in view of the above, that the attention of the Coalition of Youths Against Corruption (COYAC) and Good Governance Initiative (GGI) a prodemocracy, human rights and civil society group has been drawn to the unethical sharp practices been perpetrated currently by the leadership of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Mrs Carol Wura-ola Adepoju, in the on-going recruitment of candidates into the service without due process; not following the Federal Character Commission (FCC) laid down rules of recruitment of candidates into the organization; the misappropriation of funds meant for foreign missions by the acting CG; the unethical procurement practices of spending tax payers’ money with her husband, particularly making sure that the husband is perpetually listed on the travel manual with her on every trip; approving unethical recruitment racketeering ring organized by one so-called Babangida and Nasiru, a self-acclaimed religious bigot always playing the religious card who sell out employment letters to cronies, friends and family members, instead of capable Nigerians seeking employment and enabling the bragging rights of the Acting CG who has consistently said she is going nowhere, whereas her three months extension has expired, despite knowing full well she is deficient in the management of the affairs of the NIS.
The Nigerian Immigration Service is a government agency mandated and saddled with responsibilities to control persons entering or leaving the country, issuance of travel documents to bona fide Nigerians at home and abroad, issuance of resident permits to foreigners in Nigeria, border surveillance and patrol and the enforcement of the above laws and regulations rests on its oars. Regrettably, since the advent of the incumbent administration under the leadership of Mrs Carol Wura-ola Adepoju, it has been observed by keen watchers that, the Nigeria Immigration Service has been bedeviled with poor leadership, cronyism, official high handedness, passport racketeering and poor border surveillance/patrol leading to the influx of illegal aliens exacerbating the poor security situation in the country.
In a press release made available to journalists in Lagos by the pressure group, the Coalition of Youths Against Corruption (COYAC) and signed by the President of COYAC, Mahmud Bello and National Coordinator (GGI), Com. Sani Ninjiba Sarki, the duo lamented that the Wura-ola Adepoju-led NIS has negated the core values of the organization by entrenching cronyism and sharing the slots of employments/recruitments to Nigerians between herself, a former Minister in charge of the Ministry of Interior and giving same to Mr Nasiru, an officer of the service to sell and use at will to favour some select few instead of making it available to majority of Nigerians.
Mahmud Bello and Com. Sani Ninjibi Sarki emphasized that “the Acting CG of the Nigeria Immigration Service has been entrenching her kinsmen and cronies in juicy positions at the detriment of quality service delivery and efficiency which was the hall mark of the NIS before she came on board as acting leader not long ago.”
COYAC also emphasized that the border patrol funds are not properly utilized for effective border management, but are going into private pockets, instead of government coffers and that there is lack of transparency in passports administration which has affected passport insurance to a lot of Nigerians across the country, which has also affected the Greater Washington levy to address verification for all passport clients. The non-functionality of operational vehicles across the country at various posts is giving officers and men cause for concern and worries which has also affected the lack of adequate facilities at the airports and sea borders.
Accordingly, we condemn in the strongest terms the procurement process presently on-going at the NIS which is poorly managed and coordinated. The due process regime are not followed for contracts, contractors and purchases which are also given to cronies without following the laid down rules and guidelines. The productivity of staff which was foremost and paramount then has now nose-dived as command and control of personnel deployments across the country is at the lowest ebb with low morale and low espirit-de-corps of officers and men. Narrating further, the group lamented and chided the poor management regime of Wura-ola Adepoju’s leadership, noting that it has engendered low morale in the service. The group added, that the spirit of oneness and discipline peculiar to the paramilitary organization has taken flight in the NIS, thereby reducing productivity and revenue generation for the country.
Duly, the group therefore “Passes a Vote of no Confidence” on the management for the low level of leadership and the factors mentioned above and hereby describe the scarcity of passports nation-wide and other travel documents, which it attributed to the evil machinations of a syndicate chaired by Nasiru and Babangida oiled by the Acting CG for her personal gain and the cabal she operates within the system.
COYAC and GGI have it on good authority, that the present led management is systematically destroying the legacies met on ground and witch-hunting those patriotic personnel and officers who are opposed to her machinations and therefore, “we ask Mr President to remove her immediately from office to pave the way for a more pro-Tinubu loyalist, effective, efficient and proactive officer who is determined to lead by example for the betterment of the NIS and to improve revenue generation for the total wellbeing of the nation.”
We further reiterate that the Accountant of the Civil Defence, Immigration, Fire and Prisons Board (CDIFPB) should be made to account for his stewardship for the past eight years he piloted the affairs of the Board as we have it on good authority, that there are a lot of financial infractions, fleecing and loopholes presently noticed on the Board as procurement procedures are not followed and due process abandoned totally in all ramifications.
The group is using this medium to also ask that the husband of the Acting NIS CG, should vacate the premises of the NIS. If not, “we would be forced to carry out a one million man-march protest to the National Assembly, Aso Rock Villa, ministry of Interior and the Office of the National Security Adviser as the husband is not an employee of the NIS.”
