By Jaafar Jaafar
I’m happy the Senate did not succumb to Comptroller
General of Customs, Hameed Ali’s implausible pretexts of avoiding either
appearance before the Senate or wearing the service uniform.
Since his illegal appointment as Comptroller General of Customs on August 27,
2015, Hameed Ali, a retired army colonel, flies the service aircraft, earns the
service highest salary, occupies the top service office, but looks down upon
the service uniform. He wants all the privileges attached to the office, except
that grey uniform with green beret.
That military elitism of looking at the police with
disdain, the paramilitary with derision and civilian with contempt is still
running in Hameed Ali’s veins. Haughty, asocial and absolutist, Ali is a
terrible oddball under a democratic setting.
But if Ali thinks their uniform is demeaning to wear, as
his regimented, intemperate ego tells him, he should quietly leave the job for
career officers or someone who could abide by the rules. It is not a matter of
doing your job well, which is also put to question particularly by your
senseless retroactive order on car duty payment. Ali’s order on mandatory duty
payment for old vehicle owners is akin to forcing pre-JAMB era degree holders
to sit for UTME and score 200 to validate their certificates or risk revocation
of their degrees.
On the uniform, Ali should be reminded that discipline
as essential in military as it is in paramilitary service. As it depicts
discipline, commonality and solidarity in military service, so it does in
paramilitary service. When Obasanjo appointed a retired army general, Haldu
Hananiya, as head of Federal Road Safety Corps, he wore the corps livery to
show that he is part of it.
