Former Nigeria Immigration officer Joachim Olumba writes on how they were denied promotion because they were not Northerners and Muslims:

In the first part of this write-up, I attempted to dwell extensively on the recent valedictory speech of Senator Orji Uzor Kalu and the copious matters arising therefrom. The title is; Like Orji Uzor Kalu, We’ve Been Biting The Cake of Injustice.

The way Senator Kalu narrated how unfairly he was treated despite, according to him, contributing heavily to national development was akin to how some of my colleagues and I, in addition to countless other Nigerians, were unjustly treated notwithstanding our various and numerous contributions and sacrifices to the course of nation building. He had the platform of the Senate floor to narrate his ordeal and he sufficiently caught public attention by ensuring that some tears accompanied his narration.

In my own case and that of my colleagues in Nigeria Immigration Service, who were brazenly denied our well-deserved promotion, there’s, unfortunately, no such potent platform to tell our story and ventilate our bitter emotions. However, I find it absolutely necessary to follow in Orji Uzor Kalu’s footsteps by using the media to get Nigerians informed about our plight in order to buttress the Senator’s position to the effect that many Nigerians have been treated unfairly in this country by their government and government institutions.

In 2022, all those who were due for promotion in Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General from amongst Comptrollers and had not retired were duly invited to an interview exercise. The promotion interview examination was, for the first time, a computer-based test (CBT), followed by the usual oral version.

Officers of the rank of Comptroller of Immigration invited to participate in the promotion interview exercise were those who had spent three years on the substantive rank between 1st January, 2019 and 1st January, 2022. Furthermore, among the qualified officers, only those who had not yet proceeded on retirement before the date of the promotion examination received invitation for participation. The promotion exercise took place between 5th-7th September, 2022.

This policy was contrary to the previous practice of extending invitations to all duly qualified officers whether they had retired or not, in so far as they had spent the required number of years on a substantive rank. For the first time, this rule was altered and only duly qualified officers still in service as at the examination date were permitted to partake in the promotion interview exercise. Notwithstanding that this was unusual, the few affected officers accepted the strange new rule without contestation.

Meanwhile, in opting for computer-based test (CBT), the board saddled with responsibility for conducting the promotion exercise, in conjunction with the management of NIS hinted of a commitment to early release of the results of the examination, attributing its decision to adopt the CBT option to this objective.

Eventually, the result was never released as contemplated. When the promotion interview examination result list was released, some of the best officers in the substantive rank of Comptroller of Immigration were surprisingly and conspicuously missing among the newly promoted Assistant Comptrollers General. It was learnt that in a curious twist, the authorities belatedly decided to disqualify all officers who joined the Service in 1988, who had been duly invited to participate in the interview process. This sudden and inexplicable obnoxious decision to deny more senior officers of deserved promotion while favouring their juniors on the eligibility list is discrimination and injustice taken too far. It’s even more unjustifiable and utterly provoking that some of the promoted officers were juniors to the cheated senior officers by as many as three years of joining the Service.

The claim that we had either retired or had a few months to retirement at the time of the release of the promotion list could be regarded as utmost insensitivity and irresponsibility. The promotion was based on the period 1st January, 2019 and 1st January, 2022. The officers who met these fundamental criteria and were duly invited to participate in the promotion interview exercise cannot therefore be senselessly denied on the ground of having retired or being close to retirement as at the time of release of the promotion list. The officers should not be compelled to suffer for the ineptitude of the board and management of NIS in deliberately delaying the release of a CBT for five months. It must be recalled here that the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) does not spend one month in releasing results for over a million candidates of the yearly examination it conducts.

Besides, you can not reasonably deny an officer who had duly and faithfully complied to the stipulated guidelines based on his retirement status after the examination. This is quite a flimsy ground and therefore, grossly unacceptable. This is because in this same Service before now, every qualified officer, whether retired or about to retire, had been invited to participate in promotion interviews. The basic requirement is that you must have spent the minimum number of years on your rank to be eligible for participation. In 2021, all the Comptrollers of Immigration who participated in the promotion interview exercise from retirement, and those who proceeded on retirement after the examination or before the release of the results were all promoted to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General of Immigration.

The fundamental question is: why did the condition for promotion of officers due for retirement suddenly change in NIS? We took a closer look at all the facts on the table and we realised that most of the affected senior officers were from the South East and Middle Belt. Furthermore, with the exception of one of the officers who is a Muslim from Kogi state, the rest of us are Christians. Three of the affected Christians are from the Middle Belt states of Benue, Plateau and Kogi while the remaining three are of South East extraction- two from Imo and one from Anambra states. About 90% of officers whose names appeared on the eligibility list for promotion to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General were Southerners. Names of Christians from both South and the Middle Belt widened the percentage even the more. Invariably, there were just a few eligible core Northerners and Muslims on the list. If the eligible officers of 1988 set had been promoted as we ought to have, the names of Southern and Middle Belt beneficiaries would have swollen the numbers in clear favour of the South and the Christians. Ordinarily, this shouldn’t have posed any problem as promotion ought to have been on merit. Unfortunately, we operate in an unusual environment where ethnicity, religious bigotry, nepotism and favoritism occupy utmost relevance. Hence, the authorities had no qualms in sacrificing some of us unjustly. Even when the authorities opted to eliminate some names from the list of successful officers, one finds it absolutely difficult to comprehend why they went for the more senior ones. Perhaps, they did this with the intention of rubbing in our losses. It would be easier and more convenient for the Service to settle our due entitlements as Comptrollers rather than as Assistant Comptrollers General.

Certainly, the names contained on the list of newly promoted Assistant Comptrollers General couldn’t have been predicated strictly on performance. This is because three of us namely: Comptroller Simbabi Baikie, Comptroller Ndubuisi Eneregbu and my humble self had always acquitted ourselves throughout our years in the Service. Without sounding immodest, we cannot be excluded from the list of outstanding officers. Our records speak eloquently for us. The rest of the affected officers namely; Comptroller Mike Dama and Comptroller Ob Anyalechi from Plateau and Anambra states respectively are no less exceptional.

In order to buttress these assertions, permit me to highlight some of the academic performances of three of the affected officers earlier mentioned above. In fact, all the five Comptrollers mentioned here attended the 20th Basic Course at the Immigration Training School, Kano. Myself, Baikie and Eneregbu all passed with distinction. To cap it all, Baikie took the overall second-best position while I came third overall best out of well over 200 newly recruited trainees, who were mostly fresh graduates from tertiary institutions and a few senior officers on transfer of service. By the way, all the trainees of the 1988 set were senior officers.

Furthermore, several years down the line, Comptroller Baikie and I were to attend the 10th Command Course at the Immigration Command and Staff College, Sokoto in 2019. Again, the two of us had distinction. Comptroller Eneregbu attended the 8th Command Course and he equally graduated with distinction. So, it’s apparent that we’re not the kind of officers who will not perform excellently in any examination that is not tainted with manipulations in the assessment process. It’s therefore completely out of place for anyone to assume that we did not perform well during the 2022 promotion examination. It’s even more difficult for anyone to advance that reason because all of us who are of the 1988 set and therefore the more senior on the eligibility list couldn’t have failed a particular examination undertaken with our juniors. So, this is quite curious.

Let’s take the consideration even further to encapsulate more concrete performance and achievements. I would like to limit the consideration here to my own most remarkable contributions during the period of service under which the denied promotion was based i.e. between 2019 and 2022.

Perhaps, the most outstanding of my numerous achievements during this period was my relentless spirited efforts in initiating the renovation of the badly destroyed new command office complex in Enugu and ensuring the complete relocation of the command from its temporary and unconducive accommodation at the federal secretariat complex, Enugu, where the command operated for over thirty years.

The newly constructed command office complex in Emene-Enugu had been badly damaged barely 72 hours before its commissioning by hoodlums during the ill-fated ENDSARS protests in October 2020. This was barely three months before my redeployment to Enugu State Command.

As soon as I arrived in Enugu and assumed office, I threw all my weight into turning around the misfortune and eyesore that the command office complex presented. In between my routine official engagements, I devoted considerable interest and time to getting back the complex to its original shape before it was visited with destruction. I literally moved to everywhere in the Coal City as Enugu is popularly called. My mission was to contact anyone who would bail the cat by shouldering the responsibility of renovating the edifice. This was in the face of the refusal of the authorities of Nigeria Immigration Service and the government of Enugu State to expend any dime in bringing back the edifice to its good and useful shape. I was not bothered about my imminent retirement. I spent all my time searching frantically for a messiah to come to the aid of the command in particular, and NIS in general.

After just two months of strenuous and persistent efforts, providence brought a young public-spirited and illustrious son of Enugu State, Engr. Stanley Anih, who came to our rescue. Engr. Anih is the managing director and chief executive officer, Spotter Construction Company Limited, an Enugu-based wholly indigenous estate development firm. He took up the responsibility of renovating all the damaged buildings within the command premises. The extensive renovation works included the reconstruction of the burnt section of the main edifice, replacement of all the glasses, including windows and doors which were completely smashed; all the wooden doors damaged; fittings such as toilet systems, fans, air-conditioning units, electrical equipment, etc, that were either vandalised or stolen. Engr. Stanley Anih funded the renovation and replacement of all the damaged portions and items in the buildings as well as the repainting of the entire main complex. He did not end there. He went ahead to furnish the conference room as well as the general waiting room.

Apart from Engr. Anih, I succeeded in attracting a notable and illustrious businessman, Engr. Onuorah Nnabugwu, who is the the managing director and chief executive officer of an Enugu-based company, Tetralog Nigeria Limited, a major distributor of Mercedes Benz products, to assist the command in lavishly furnishing the VIP Lounge of the passport office. There’s also a Lagos-based business tycoon and managing director and chief executive officer of Quality Point Industries Ltd, Chief Stanley Eze, who wholly financed the furnishing of the Comptroller’s office.

The monumental interventions borne by the trio of Engr. Stanley Anih, Engr. Onuorah Nnabugwu and Chief Stanley Eze would have, on the aggregate, cost the NIS over seventy million naira (N70m) by way of contract awards. Fortunately, I chose to sacrifice my time and effort in saving my Service this fairly huge burden.

I did not stop there. I proceeded to further utilise my own personal financial resources to provide the furniture items in the general reception area of the main command complex. Also, I procured and installed fans, window blinds and two air-conditioning units in some parts of the main office complex at personal cost.

Besides all of this, I recorded quite many more achievements for Nigeria Immigration Service. Through my initiative and support, we were able to procure and plant over 500 trees as well as flowers of different species within the command premises. This was intended not only for the beautification of the premises but the protection of the environment from ecological damage. Some of the trees are fruits bearing and therefore have economic benefits. It’s pertinent to remark also that we got the Rotary Club of Enugu to support the command in the sponsorship, procurement and planting of 100 trees to boost our own commendable effort in this regard.

My efforts to ensure the transformation of Enugu State Command did not end there. I got the Immigration Officers’ Wives Association (IMMOWA) to scale through the hurdle of formal inauguration. This was a feat that the command had been unable to achieve since the formation of the association. I attained this lofty feat after barely one year of my redeployment to the command and just as I was on the verge of taking my exit from the Service.

Beyond the considerable effort and sacrifice that we put in to accomplish the inauguration of the Enugu State Chapter of IMMOWA, I offered substantial support for the commencement of construction work on the association’s ultra-modern Hall/Creche complex. I attracted the national president of the association and wife of the then Comptroller General of Immigration, Hajiya Maryam Isah Jere to perform the foundation laying ceremony as part of the official inauguration of the chapter. There was also the Command’s Christian Fellowship Chapel which I personally laid the foundation and made a donation of concrete blocks to facilitate the work.

Besides all the above concrete achievements, I initiated and published for Enugu State Command a rich colourful news magazine (the same way I did in a number of formations where I served, including the NIS headquarters, in my capacity as Service PRO). I contributed a lot more towards the improvement of service delivery in the command. For me, total commitment to duty and value addition were essential and incontrovertible attributes that I brought to bear in which ever assignment that I was saddled with.

Outside Enugu State Command where I left indelible and incomparable records of achievements, virtually everywhere that I served, I tried to put in utmost effort to leave the place better than I met it. I did not depart from this principle when I was appointed NIS Reform Champion in 2019 and sometime in 2020 as Comptroller in-charge, e-Visa at the Service headquarters. Throughout the period that I served in those offices, I contributed towards the dynamic initiatives and efforts of the then Comptroller General of Immigration, Muhammad Babandede at engineering the total transformation of the Service. One of the most outstanding contributions that I made in this regard was to design and execute a proposal for the migration of the Temporary Work Permit (TWP) process from the manual to online system. This was sequel to the directive of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) that the Service extended its transformation agenda to this crucial process in order to eliminate undue delays and sharp practices inherent in the manual process. I do not know what eventually became of the system but as the Service Reform Champion I helped to bring to fruition the vital objective of transforming the process to facilitate the operations of companies in need of foreign experts for engagement on temporary basis.

In 2020, I was appointed as pioneer Comptroller in-charge of the newly created e-Visa Section at the Service headquarters. In that capacity I was saddled with the onerous responsibility of implementing the policy on revalidation of all expired visas and permits hitherto issued to expatriates and foreigners before the outbreak of the corona virus pandemic and the subsequent ban on international travel. Following the outbreak of the deadly virus, international airports and land borders were closed not only in Nigeria but across the world. This resulted in the expiry of thousands of visas and permits during the peak period of the global pandemic. With the eventual reopening of international airports and land borders for resumption of international travel, the NIS under Muhammad Babandede graciously opted for the revalidation of all expired visas and permits. The onus fell on my shoulders as the Comptroller e-Visa to spearhead the implementation. I executed this crucial and challenging assignment with a high degree of professionalism and dedication. The deluge of applications that my office had to process was clearly unprecedented. This resulted in my immediate staff and I working for very long hours that sometimes stretched far into the nights, even during the weekends. None of us received any compensation for our sacrifice. Nevertheless, we kept working very hard out of the conviction that it was our way of contributing to the national economy that had been badly weakened by the deadly corona virus pandemic.

Earlier in 2020, the federal government had inaugurated the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 in response to the outbreak of the pandemic in Nigeria. Myself, MG Abubakar and Dr. Wale Funsho, the head of the NIS medical unit had been nominated as representatives of the Service on the PTF. The federal capital territory (FCT) had been under total lock down. Government offices, apart from a few rendering essential services were closed down. Even at that, those offering essential services had skeletal operations, including the Nigeria Immigration Service. Only very few senior officers attended to work at the NIS headquarters.

However, throughout the period of the lock down, the three of us who were NIS representatives on the PTF went to work daily, as did all other members. The operational base of the PTF was the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. Though, its crucial and complex activities took the members to different locations in the federal capital, including the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, a couple of designated quarantine centres in Abuja and so on. On a few occasions, some of us travelled out of Abuja all in our effort to stem the spread of the extremely dangerous disease.

It is pertinent to stress that my single most significant contribution towards the attainment of the goals of the PTF was the role I played in facilitating the collation of the comprehensive list of all travellers who arrived in the country from the date of arrival of the index case to the date of closure of all international airports and the land borders in the country. This was the list used for nationwide random contact tracing. This was quite a herculean task. Nonetheless, I was able to coordinate all the necessary formations and liaise with relevant technical partners of NIS to be able to generate a useful list for the crucial contact tracing.

Talking about the outstanding contributions and sacrifices that one made to the nation through the Nigeria Immigration Service, they are quite numerous. Outside the period of the focus of this article, I will like to bring to public attention just one of these many remarkable achievements and legacies. Several years ago as Public Relations Officer of Zone E with headquarters in Owerri, I initiated and organised a seminar for corporate organisations operating under the zone. As part of the opening event, we had a public presentation and launch of a colourful news magazine which I initiated, edited and published for Zone E, then under the leadership of Mrs Rose Uzoma as ACG/Zonal Coordinator. The event was a huge success. It was remarkable that we pulled through without engaging any consultancy outfit. I simply relied on my professional experience and knowhow to achieve great results at no cost to the Service. We generated huge proceeds and deployed same to the construction of an eight-room residential accommodation- all en suite, in the Aladinma Extension area of Owerri. The edifice was to provide temporary accommodation for newly posted officers to the Zonal Office, to enable them settle down as quickly as possible. This achievement was remarkable because it happened at a time officers were scrambling to buy off residential buildings owned by the Service across the country sequel to the privatisation policy of the then President Obasanjo administration. I never got one building. Rather, I helped to bequeath one to the Service. Unfortunately and very sadly, this building that I facilitated through collective efforts was eventually acquired by a top officer of the Service. So, as a few of us were striving through self-help efforts to better the Service, others were taking away both what we had achieved and what government had provided to the Service.

With all of these great contributions and many more which cannot be highlighted here for obvious reasons, all the reward the board and management of Nigeria Immigration Service thought that I deserved was to deny me of promotion at the point I was leaving the Service. I am not even making any case for special promotion which they had been dishing out to officers undeservedly at some point. I am simply referring to a promotion on the meritorious grounds of my performance during the examination and my outstanding achievements and contributions to the Service during the period of assessment.

Ironically, I hosted the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola on two occasions within six months during which he came to commission projects that I played remarkable roles to accomplish in Enugu State Command. During his first visit, he was accompanied by the then Comptroller General of Immigration, Muhammad Babandede while CGI Isah Idris Jere was with him on the second official trip. The former minister was fully aware of my achievements in Enugu but he was more concerned about handing out promotion to his kith and kin. Meanwhile, the Comptroller General of Immigration, Isah Jere, who superintended affairs of the Service during the last promotion exercise was more interested in seeking further extension of his tenure such that he couldn’t protect his officers. In fact, he spearheaded our exclusion from the list since virtually all affected officers are Christians while himself and Aregbesola are Muslims. Strangely, they could not subject officers promoted to the rank of Comptroller to this same retirement balderdash they brought in to deprive us of our due promotion. The question then is: what could be the justification in denying a batch of officers who were due for promotion to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General? We were denied promotion yet one Aliyu Jika, a core Northern Muslim, was promoted posthumously to the rank of Comptroller of Immigration. Would they have found it appropriate to grant posthumous promotion to an Igbo, South South or Middle Belt officer who is a Christian? Of what use is that promotion to the deceased officer since we who were about retiring from service were not deserving of promotion? Under the immediate past Minister of Interior and the former Comptroller General of Immigration, Isah Jere, officers who are of their ethnic stock had extensions of their service against civil service rules (CSR). They should explain to the world why no officer of their ethnic groups or religion was among those of us unjustly denied promotion. What a way to reward some very hardworking and exceptional officers!

This is the sort of unfair treatment that brought lamentations and tears from Senator Orji Uzor Kalu. There’s no dispute that countless Nigerians in different facets of national life suffered various descriptions and degrees of unfair and unjust treatment during the immediate past regime of President Muhammadu Buhari. At no time since after the civil war were Nigerians so discriminated against or treated so unfairly as was done by the Buhari administration. The severity of marginalisation visited on people in various segments was so profound and pronounced that many had their sense of patriotism dimmed. The situation was so bad that it exerted terrible consequences on the nation. It was not only the love for country that was endangered but the love of Nigerians for each other across ethnic and religious divide. Indeed, the country had never been as much polarised as under President Buhari. Of course, this had dire consequences on the performance of the country in all facets under his regime.

Agreeably, many individuals, tribal and religious groups have been served the bitter cake of injustice and there appears to be a consensus that the people are no longer willing to consume same. The new administration must therefore make conscious effort to change this very ugly narrative. The only way to foster meaningful rapid progress is to engender great citizens participation in national development strides. This cannot be achieved without promoting the sense of patriotism in the people. The only time people will be driven to make sacrifices for collective good and progress is when they are fairly, justly and properly treated. Let us hope that we will never again plunge the country to the unconscionable relegation, deprivation and denial based on ethnic and, or religious cleavage and sentiments.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Immigration Service must find a way to remedy the callous discrimination and brazen injustice meted out to some of the outstanding officers of 1988 who were excluded from promotion in 2022. This cannot be a rational and acceptable way to treat officers who have offered their utmost to enhance their Service.

Joachim Olumba (retd CIS), KSJI

Emetumba-Dikenafai & Omekannaya-Nchoke