An Immigration officer, Mr. Fimibama Aches Stephen who doctored his employment records and currently being backed by first lady, Mrs. Patience Goodluck Jonathan may be named Comptroller-General of Immigration, baring any last minutes changes, Pointblanknews.com has learnt.
Consequently, some aggrieved staff of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) under the name “The Concerned Officers of the Service” has raised alarm over plans to impose a candidate with questionable records as the substantive Comptroller-General of Immigration (CGI).
The “anointed” candidate, Mr. Fimibama Aches Stephen, Assistant Comptroller-General (ACG), who is alleged to enjoy the backing of, Dame Patience Jonathan and a cousin of his who is a medical Doctor in the medical team of President Jonathan, is ought to have been retired since 2011.
The Concerned staff in a statement tagged; “Deliver Us from This Leadership Crisis, Oh Lord”, accused Fimibama Stephen of deceiving the Service to continue staying beyond his retirement period even when all his contemporaries in NIS has been retired since 2011.
The group expressed shock that despite all the available evidence that the AGC is dubious, fraudulent and incompetent; he was not only being allowed to stay beyond the mandated years of service but is being pencilled down to lead the Service at such a critical period.
Part of their statement read: “The nee and time to cry out louder for rescue and divine intervention in the matter of appointment of a substantive comptroller General of Immigration Service cannot be better done than now.
“By now, well-meaning Nigerians are aware that since the uncelebrated exit of the former Comptroller General, Mrs. Rose Chinyere Uzoma OON, mni, all have not been well with the process of selecting a suitable, credible and competent successor, who by all standard is expected to tidy up the already bastardised service and justifiably correct the wrongs done by the immediate past administration, which virtually left the Service prostrate”.
“The scheming and underground manoeuvres, which propped up three prospective candidates initially, is believed to be assuming a new dimension, dangerous enough to bring the Service to total collapse. Those candidates initially proposed for the plum job included; Alh. Rilwanu B. Musa, mni (Ag.CGIS) who presently superintends over the affairs of the Service in acting capacity and is assessed to be doing well.
Others are Mr. Ayo Oredipe (ACG) and Mr. Babandede Mohammed (ACG)”.
Information reaching us, “The Concerned Officers of the Service”, highly suggests that the Hon. Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro may have thrown spanner into the wheel of progress as it was gathered that he had directed lately for two other names along with their curriculum vitae be forwarded to his office for onward submission to the Presidency for consideration. Embarrassingly, among these names is the one of Mr. Fimibama Aches Stephen (ACG), who is believed to enjoy the backing of Her Excellency, The First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan and a cousin of his who is a medical Doctor in the medical team of Mr. President.
“We are highly astonished by this late development as the choice of this ACG is found to be another step taken towards the wrong direction. Verily, Mr. Fimibama is not in any way the redeemer of this Service for obvious reasons which may include the following among many others:
Mr. Fimibama, according to records available to us ought to have proceeded on retirement from service since April, 2011 after putting in 35 years of service which included the actual working years he carried over from the Rivers State Government.
Truly, he had been in the employment of Rivers State Government since April, 1976 before voluntarily transferred to Nigeria Immigration Service as a Deputy Supt. Of Immigration on Salary Grade Level 09. Details of these information are contained in the Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (APER) forms he filled, signed and maintained for promotion purposes while in Service in 1987,1989,1990,1991 and 1992 in his own handwriting certfiying that all information provided there in were correct and true”.
“As he progressed in the Service however, the idea to criminally alter his records for self-fufilling reasons occurred to him and thus, changed his date of first appointment from the original date of April, 1976 to 4th January, 1983.
This matter was brought to light for immediate redress during the past regime of Mrs. Uzoma but because he believed to be enjoying the favour and protection of the First Lady of the Federation and because Mrs. Uzoma would not want to offend the First Lady who gave life to her dying regime, it was swept under the carpet. Rather than taking objective and realistic position on the matter in spite of the fact that so many other officers such as Sir Willy Park ACG (rtd), Dr. Umo J. Emmanuel DCI (rtd) and Mrs. Felicia Alasia nee Nsiegbe DCI (rtd) to mention but a few were all retired with due compliance to the same extant Immigration/Civil Service Rules, the Service still went ahead to promote him to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General.
Again, even though he was said to have argued that he had resigned his earlier employment that took effect from 1976 with Rivers State Government and was re absorbed again in 1983, before joining Nigeria Immigration Service, that argument obviously is not tenable as there were no documentary evidence to back it up originally in his official records at his point of recruitment or entry into the Service and therefore must be viewed as a dubious afterthought. A person with thus dirty pedigree is certainly not worthy of being bestowed a position of this magnitude”.
“We also learnt that as a Comptroller, he was vested with the responsibility of Rivers State Command as the Comptroller in charge. No sooner did he arrive there that the entire institutional and disciplinary structures which his predecessor laboured assiduously to build shamefully collapsed like a pack of cards due to his administrative ineptitude. We wonder what a person who could not run a State Command with all the attributes of a disciplined Para-military outfit sucessfully would do if vested with a higher responsibility as huge as that of a Comptroller General of Immigration Service at such a time when the country is facing enormous security threats and challenges”.
“On the strength of these deficiencies, we strongly suggest that the authorities that be, should carefully take a firm stand on either to confirm the present Acting Comptroller General putting into serious consideration his wealth of experience and matured administrative and attitudinal make up; or widen the selection scope by directly screening ALL OFFICERS of the rank of Assistant Comptroller General and above. This will create room for credibility and merit throuhg, which other officers with exceedingly richer administrative expertise and intellectual capacity would be unearthed and not necessarily making a choice based on entirely ethnic and geographical cleavages”