Dr. Ade Abolurin at 11 years as service chief: The need to restructure the management of NSCDC.

NSCDC is a paramilitary agency of Nigeria. The corps is statutorily empowered by lay Act No.2 of 2003 and amended by Act 6 of 4th June 2007.

On 28th June 2003, an Act to give statutory backing to the corps passed by the National Assembly was signed into law by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the former President and Commandant in Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The Commanadant General of NSCDC Dr. Ade Abolurin had spent 10 years and above as the CG of the corps. He is the oldest and longest Service Chief in any military or paramilitary agency in the world. He has been the CG since the enactment of the agency.

Under his watch, many corrupt activities like recruitment racketeering, land scam, etc most especially he was indicted in

2008/2009 recruitment exercise where he was directly involved in cash for job.

In recent time, many unemployed youths had been duped by people suspected to be top management officers of NSCDC (DCGs,CC admin, others). The worst senerio is that after they might have recruited their victims, they will dismiss them unofficially thereby claiming all the attributed salaries and entitlement of the victims.

Example of this is the 90 officers wrongfully dismissed from the corps in the year 2008. Their uniforms and employment letters were withdrew by the corps, salaries were stopped since 2008 but most unfortunate their pension contribution were still running in their pension accounts which means that someone or a group of people are claiming their salaries since 2008 upto date.

The act of withdrawal of employment letter and uniform from trained personnel without proper investigation and prosecution if necessary is a big scam in the corps in asmuch is not happening in other agencies.

Also, the issue of land scam in FCT which involved some top management officers in corps where houses and undevelop landed properties worth billions of Naira were seized bt ICPC in 2013. How could the CG and his managerial team claim ignorant when all the transactions happened in the FCT command headquarters and National headquarters of NSCDC.

A chief Superintendent of NSCDC who spoke on condition of anonymity pointed out that there are many cases of massive corruption in NSCDC being committed by some top management officers of the corps.

It could be recalled that the CG who is a very close allies of former President was appointed by same in the year 2003 and the position has not been tampered with by President Goodluck Jonathan due to some reasons best known to him with high level of corruption perpetrating in the corps.

The Speaker of House of Representative Aminu Waziri Tambuwal in few weeks ago said Mr. President is shielding corruption.

The time has finally come for Dr. Ade Abolurin, his Deputies and other corrupt officials in the corps to be shown out of the service before it degenarate to internal crisis.

How could someone be in a position of CG or DCG for 11years in which it had been hindering the promotion of many officers to top positions thereby stagnated for years without promotion.

It should be noted that the CG and his DCGs lack managerial and paramilitary skills which has been affecting the corps since 2003.

In the last note, the President and National Assembly should with immediate effect come to the resque of the corps by restructuring the management of the agency for effective delivery of its mandate.

Don. Bello Ahmed