Understanding Nigeria Customs Service in a new administration

Understanding Nigeria Customs Service in a new administration

The exceptional performance, discipline and operational efficiency in the last two months have shown that it’s a new dawn in Nigeria Customs Service, which requires understanding the activities of the Service in this new administration.

As such, the Comptroller General of Customs, CGC Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR, the personality behind this rapid transformation
has said that deliberate actions will be taken to create awareness about the operations of Customs.

The CGC gave this information when he presented a paper titled; “The Nigeria Customs Service and the Public Relations Challenges”, at the 17th International Public Relations Congress.

According to him, people need to generate interest to have a better understanding of the operations of the service.

His words : “We discovered that in many cases, people are always ignorant of what we do. It is based on the ignorance that they’re impatient to criticise us.

“So, we will also want to make a deliberate action to create awareness and let people have knowledge about what we do”.

On Customs Strategic Communication Plan, the CGC said; “It has been our culture to complement our vigorous appearances with a consistently soothing voice in line with the overall corporate objectives.

“The strategy of putting the media in the middle is something we do, to ensure we get our information across to the people.”

The Customs Boss also highlighted the important of Customs Community Consultative forum as a tool for resolving issues causing crisis, especially within border areas.

The forum, according to him; “enlists senior officers and members of management of Area Commands in Customs on one side and traditional institutions, community leaders, traders’ unions and youth leaders on the other side.

“This programme features periodic engagement with traditional leaders, meetings with associations, traders, and youth leaders, dialogues, identifying their problems and showing them what the laws say, what is permitted and what is prohibited. We laugh, pray and talk with them without compromising professionalism.

“In a couple of years, major issues causing crisis, clashes and conflicts have been mitigated, majority of the communities became at peace with Customs activities, and we became at peace with the community residents.

“I must confess that this CCF initiative has been very successful, especially in border States, evidenced in Ogun, Katsina and Lagos, where this strategy has miraculously stemmed the rate of conflicts. The secret of this success, dear friends was not ammunition but communication”.

The CGC further said that the Customs community relations strategy did not end in a communication forum, as concerted efforts have been made by the Service towards community projects that ultimately benefit border communities and beyond, some of which include Karu Hospital, tagged as “The Flagship Customs CSR Programme, NCS Primary and Secondary School in Idiroko among others.

“We are also working on a deliberate recruitment plan for the indigenes of border communities into Service. We believe there are gaps and we can do better”.