Prominent pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has described as nepotistic, inherently self-serving and detestable, the recent action of

President Bola Tinubu for approving a one-year extension of the tenure of the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi.

HURIWA faulted the extension of service on the ground that it was reportedly made to stop the Deputy Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service who is of Igbo origin, Ms. B.U. Nwafor from Anambra State from succeeding the kinsman of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu Mr. Adewale Adeniyi.

Moreover, HURIWA carpeted the President?s reasons for the extension as if to say Mr. Adewale Adeniyi is so indispensable that only him can implement the programmes attributed to him by President Tinubu just as the Rights group said successions by others in the public service offices are such well-grounded and legally permissible order for persons whose careers are in the public service just as no one person is indispensable or irreplaceable.

According to the rights group, "If President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has argued that Mr. Adewale Adeniyi?s service period was extended beyond his retirement date because it is to allow him consolidate on ongoing reforms and complete key initiatives of the Tinubu administration, is the president saying that only the person of officer Adewale Adeniyi knows the ways and means to consolidate the so-called ongoing reforms and complete the key initiatives of the Federal government of President Tinubu? Is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu unaware of the principle that government is a continuum meaning that succession by the rightful successor irrespective of the ethnicity is not inherently harmful to the consolidation of any kind of reforms or completion of any innovative initiative of the President. Is Adewale Adeniyi inbuilt with such unique quality that only him can do those tasks as highlighted by President Tinubu in the media statement by Bayo Onanuga? These reasons smack of deficiency in logic of rational thinking and are at best puerile.?

Adeniyi, whose tenure was initially set to expire on August 31, 2025, will now remain in office until August 2026.

But justifying the extension in a statement signed by the President?s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the extension is aimed at allowing Adeniyi to consolidate ongoing reforms and complete key initiatives of the Tinubu administration.

These include the modernisation of the Customs Service, implementation of the National Single Window Project, and Nigeria?s obligations under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) protocol.

HURIWA however dismissed ?the factors mentioned by the President to justify the illegality of denying another competent, highly trained Customs officer whose disqualifying reason for not being allowed to take the mantle of leadership under the current dispensation is because she is Igbo by ethnicity just as the current government has indisputably made it clear that only persons from the South-west who are Yorubas just like Mr. President can be appointed into such strategic office of the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service.?

HURIWA argued that the decisions by President Tinubu to extend same gestures to the Inspector-General of Police and the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Immigration are grounded in the fact that the individuals are all Yorubas.

The rights group argued that any well trained officer who has worked closely with Adewale Adeniyi is adequately qualified and competent enough to continue the programmes commenced under Adeniyi?s leadership since the programmes are meant to enhance the integrity of the functions and mandates of the Nigeria Customs Service. The rights group noted that the actions of President Tinubu followed the same ethnically biased practice that was introduced by the immediate past administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari.

HURIWA restated that from researched information available in the public space, DCG BU Nwafor, is a highly respected officer from Anambra State, who rightly and by merit stood as the next in line to succeed the current Controller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi. Her record is exemplary, her service unblemished, and her rise through the ranks marked by diligence, discipline, and distinction.

HURIWA asserted that however, in a deeply disappointing turn of events, DCG Nwafor has now been denied this well-deserved elevation following the recent one-year tenure extension granted to CG Adeniyi just days ago. Her retirement looms in October 2026, and with this maneuver, the door has been quietly but deliberately shut on her legitimate opportunity to lead.

Instead, DCG KI Adeola is now positioned as next in line after Nwafor?s retirement. A succession plan that feels less like meritocracy and more like a calculated bypass of justice.

HURIWA agreed with an analysis that this nepotism is not how to heal a nation. This is not how to build trust in the aftermath of the Buhari years, which many Nigerians rightly recall as a season of division, selective appointments, and wounded national spirit. This is not how to ensure respect and acceptance for my Yoruba ethnic nationality.

HURIWA in a media release by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko, cited the work of the Philosopher Thomas Paine who once warned: ?A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.?

"We agreed with the conclusion of an analyst who affirmed that the civil war ended nearly sixty years ago, yet the ghost of that conflict still haunts our institutions. The continued marginalization of the South East this time embodied in the denial of an Igbo woman?s rise in the Customs hierarchy, sends a dangerous message to millions who still believe in equity, unity and national inclusion.

?We in HURIWA endorsed the criticism that sadly, many Igbos within the APC have chosen silence, even complicity, when it comes to injustice cloaked in procedure.

?How can a nation truly move forward when merit is sacrificed at the altar of politics and ethnic manipulation?

DCG BU Nwafor deserved better. Nigeria deserves better.

"We say with this analyst that true unity requires more than rhetoric. It demands action fairness, representation, and the courage to do what is right, even when it?s politically inconvenient. Let history remember this moment. Not as another quiet betrayal, but as a call to conscience."

The civil society organization called on President Tinubu to become a statesman by making appointments into all public offices under the Central government not based on ethnicities as he has continued to concentrate all strategic and juiciest appointments to his Yoruba kinsmen and women and to the Northern Muslims but the benchmark for appointments must respect the federal character principles.

HURIWA condemned the continuous marginalization and exclusion of persons from the Southeast of Nigeria from key positions under the administration headed by Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Update news