Barring any last minute change in plans, the Federal Government will effect a mass retirement of Senior Officers in the Nigeria Immigration Service.
The Senior Officers asked to resign are mates and juniors of the Comptroller General of Immigration, Kemi Nandap.
The new NIS CG is to assume office on March 1, 2024 following the end of tenure of her predecessor, Caroline Wuraola Adepoju, on February 29, 2024.
The appointments of both Adepoju and Nandap apparently violate the provisions of the Unified Conditions of Service for Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Federal Fire Service, Nigeria Immigration and Nigerian Prison Services, 2019.
The four paramilitary services are under the Ministry of Interior.
Chapter 3 of the document, at specifically 3.1.2, under appointments, states: “Appointment of Heads of the Services shall be on recommendation of the Board and approval of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation, from among the servicing officers of not less than Assistant Comptroller/Controller/Commandant General. Such officers shall have not less than eighteen (18) months before retirement.”
Adepoju was appointed on the eve of her retirement as acting Comptroller General of Immigration on June 1, 2023.
Nandap, an indigene of Ogun State married to a man from Plateau State, also has less than 18 months to retire from the service.
She is due to retire on October 10, 2024, having enlisted in the service in 1989.
The palpable anxiety within the Immigration Service, as learnt, arose not even because of the illegality of Nandap’s appointment as Comptroller General of the Immigration Service in apparent breach of the extant regulation, but because of the grand plan to retire officers at the top rung of the ladder who are Nandap’s juniors by virtue of her year of enlistment: 1989.
Nandap, who was a Deputy Comptroller General of Immigration before her appointment as acting Comptroller General of Immigration effective March 1, was number six on the list of officers and men who were due for retirement in 2024.
She had ahead of her two Deputy Comptrollers General of Immigration who will be expected to retire because they were her seniors.
It was learnt that there was a push to get all the Deputy Comptrollers General of Immigration to retire voluntarily before Nandap assumes office on March 1, 2024.
Sources close to the service said there were five Deputy Comptrollers General of Immigration who were her juniors and whose retirement will be on the same date as her retirement, that is October 10, 2024, save one from the South East, who, as learnt, enlisted in the Immigration Service in 1991, which gives the Officer about three more years in the service.
But it was gathered that they had all been slated for immediate retirement for inexplicable reasons.
There were insinuations of a plot to ease out officers in that position to make it easy for Nandap’s tenure that is due to terminate on October 10, 2024 to be extended by President Bola Tinubu on the recommendation of the Board of Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board under the chairmanship of the Minister of Interior, Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo.
This possibility is already being opposed in the Service with a subtle advocacy being sent across to the Presidency to guard against the inherent injustice in the purported plot to effect a blanket retirement of all the Deputy Comptrollers-General of Immigration.
Secretary to the Board of CDCFIB, Jafaru Ahmed, was said to have directed the affected subordinate officers to tender their letter of voluntary retirement.
But they were said to have refused to do so on Tuesday when they were contacted by the Board Secretary.
Analysts contend that while it is the norm for senior officers to be retired once their subordinates are appointed to head the services in which they serve, the rationale for retiring or planning to retire subordinates of new service chiefs remains largely inexplicable.
Calls put through to the Board Secretary on Wednesday morning to enable him clarify the situation were not responded to as at press time.
