By Christopher Oji, Lagos
Officials of the Nigeria Immigration Service have cried to the Comptroller-General of Immigration Service, CG Idris Isah Jire, to pay them their election duties or they would boycott the March 18 gubernatorial and Houses of Assembly elections.
The personnel, under the aegis of the Concerned Staff of the NIS, claimed that they are yet to receive their election duty allowance for the February 25 general elections, including for the 2019 elections allowances.
The officials who briefed Daily Sun Newspapers on two different occasions threatened to boycott the on coming upcoming elections holding this Saturday.
According to their spokesman, Mr Jones (not real name), “Our counterparts in the Ministry of Interior have been paid. Our friends in the Civil Defense have been paid. Our friends in the Army and the Police have also been paid. I don’t know why our case is different. It is not fair. The morning has been paid but some big men in the service have connived to sit on the money so that after some time, they will share the money as they did in the 2019 general elections.
“Officers are to receive N70,000 each, while junior ranks are to receive N30,000 each. We spent our money on hotel accommodation during the last presidential and National Assembly elections. We spent our money on transportation and feeding. Yet the Service is preaching the ethics of the job. They failed to do the needful, so how will a hungry official not compromise during elections? The Federal Government is talking of credible elections, yet it does not care about the welfare of the officers assisting in the conduct of the elections. There is no way a hungry official who has no hope of receiving his allowances will not compromise during the elections. It is better that we are withdrawn from elections duty instead of sending us without money and with an empty stomach.
” We can’t talk, because when you talk, you will be disciplined. There are many things happening in the Service that we have been condoning, but this time around, we want to start pouring out our minds. For instance, if you visit our offices, especially in Lagos State Commad, you will see officers who were transferred from other states, sleeping in the offices, because their transfer allowances have not been paid. It is an eyesore to see people cooking in the offices. Sleeping in the office is against Immigration Acts, but the authority cannot do anything about it because it has failed in Its’ duty of not paying them their allowances. Second, some of us have been in the same rank for over 20 years without promotion. The authority conducted a promotion examination in 2021, but the results have not been released, because the authority doesn’t want to pay promotion allowances. Let the authority release the result.
“We are going through hell. Some of us are on the salary of N45,000. An Inspector of Immigration receives N82,000 while his counterpart in the Nigerian Customs Service earns more than N200,00, and the authority keeps lecturing us on ethics. Why would a frustrated officer, who sees the colossal difference between his or her salary of others from sister agencies not be corrupt? If any Immigration officer is corrupt, it is the NIS authority that pushed him or her to be corrupt. Except the Immigration authority does something drastic about our plights, it should not expect us to be sincere in our job. Some of us have put in 30 years in the service and will soon retire, but there is nothing to show for our efforts on the job. Some of our colleagues have died without receiving their allowances and gratuity.
“We are, therefore, appealing to our CG to look into our plights, especially on the issues of promotion, allowances, entitlements, and gratuity. The most important one is our election allowances. If by Friday morning, we don’t get our election allowances, we won’t participate in Saturday’s gubernatorial and Houses of Assembly elections.”
When Daily Sun visited the Immigration Office at Alagbon Close, Ikoyi, Lagos, last week and yesterday, some officers were observed to be sleeping in the offices, with some cooking and hanging their clothes in front of the offices.
NIS Public Relations Officer Mr Tony Akunneme, in a telephone conversation with Daily Sun last week, said the election allowances have been paid, but, that it was left to the individual Banks of the personnel to transfer the money to their accounts.
On the issues of transfer allowances, he said the service was not owing any transfer allowances. “It is just that some of the officers are ignorant of the fact that the majority of them crying that their transfer allowances have not been paid and were not sent for transfer by the service. Some of them asked for a transfer for the best reasons known to them. So, if you ask for a transfer, the service will not pay you transfer allowances, but if the service is sending you on transfer, you must be paid before you leave on transfer. Sometimes, when a senior officer is on transfer, he will request to go in the company of some staff, so you don’t expect the service to take care of the officers going on transfer with their superior who asked for them,” he said.
According to him, as for not releasing promotion examination results, “it is false. For instance, I was newly promoted . If anyone is claiming that he or she has not been promoted, the person failed the examination”.
As of the time of this report, the officers’ election allowances have not been paid.