THAT DODGY RECRUITMENT AND THE "FOWL" SMELL IN THE FIRS.

I can tell you for free, I have first hand knowledge of Mr. Fowler employing a young female "friend" of his pal without protocols when he was in Lagos Inland Revenue Service  LIRS. In fact in LIRS it was reputed he kept a harem of pretty female employees. I never knew him but was a first hand witness to a certain pretty girl's employment who was introduced to him by his pal (who I knew) as his "friend" and heard some of her testimonies which were mind blowing.

Apparently Mr. Fowler must be definitely a bosom acolyte of the great Jagaban as he was one of the first people to be brought in to the Federal government as soon as APC won to run a very strategic organization like the FIRS. In my mind, I excused his excesses and I assumed he was a technocrat who knew his job because of the famed IGR of Lagos. However his performance in FIRS has exposed him as another paddy man who has being elevated by cronyism.

FIRS had a distinguished Chairman in the past called Ifueko Omoghui, she significantly reformed taxation and revenue collection in Nigeria that it was one of my first suspicions that GEJ was a lunatic not to have renewed her tenure for a second time when her tenure expired. (NOTE- I have being corrected that Ms Ifueko Omoghui completed her two terms as FIRS Chairman). He replaced her with a very effective successor  that when Fowler came in I was very excited. But truth be told Fowler has being a disappointment.

There are reports of arbitrariness and cronyism, obvious lack of administrative capacity, he fired a director without proper processes (he has called the director back    now), a lack of professionalism with friends and cronies daily hanging out in his conference room and office premises (the way folks used to hang in FCDA in those Abacha days under tree selling land allocation papers) doing nothing all day and occupying space that should be for official duties. Staff come for meetings in his conference room and his friends are just chilling there chatting and listening in to official information. There are also reports of him trying to influence procurement and projects for friends within the establishment. He treats staff, very senior staff with utmost disrespect in the presence of outsiders, seriously killing morale.

When he came he promised to raise N4.7 trillion for the FG in 2016, but he obviously he is not even going to achieve his self imposed target. As of today FIRS has generated about N900 billion for the FG while this time last year they were already on N1.7 Trillion (last year's total figures were slightly over N3 billion so how will he make it?). He is destroying all the structures on ground but what has caught everyone's attention is the CLANDESTINE RECRUITMENT of 346 employees to the institution.

The recruitment was neither advertised internally nor externally, in fact it was said he sought approval to bring in some of his team from LIRS and my investigations say about 100 of the 346 are from LIRS. the remaining 246 are friends, girlfriends and relatives of him, senators, reps members and other politicians. Not only were the vacancies not advertised, no real recruitment process was carried out. Mr. Fowler was said to have just compiled the names and ordered some staff to coordinate and organize an induction for the "new employees" which was carried out at the NICON Luxury Hotel Abuja for 3 days at the FIRS expense. Many of the grading for the employees were done arbitrarily and some girlfriends who didn't like their grades were said to have told him and he leaned on the induction team to put them on higher grades even if it was likely they neither had the qualifications nor working experience.

The FIRS is a cardinal arm of government, this kind of situation must not be allowed to happen. FG is not Lagos where once you settle the "bourdillon interest" you can do whatever you like. President Buhari's own personal integrity is at stake with all these very funny appointments (I am hearing terrible stories about the SGF too). Dear PMB, immediately probe this recruitment and Mr. fowler's handling of the FIRS since his appointment and FIRE him if these grave allegations are found to be true. You can't be said to fighting corruption sir if corruption is fully operating under your very nose.
God bless Nigeria