Nigerian Maritime Journalists Set To Honour Customs CG As “Iconic Maritime Personality of the Year”.

Nigerian Maritime Journalists Set To Honour Customs CG As “Iconic Maritime Personality of the Year”

Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR

By Izuchukwu Ozoemena

In appreciation of his excellent performance since assumption of office, Nigeria’s maritime media practitioners cutting across the print, electronic and online beats have concluded plans to bestow on Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, the Comptroller General of Customs, the honour as the “Iconic Maritime Personality of the Year, 2024”.

These beats include the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN), League of Maritime Editors (LOME) and the Association of Maritime Journalists of Nigeria (AMJON). Others are the Maritime Journalists Association of Nigeria (MAJAN), Shipping Correspondents Association of Nigeria (SCAN), Online Maritime Media Association of Nigeria (OMMAN) and Congress of Maritime Media Practitioners (CONMMEP).

As contained in a nomination letter to the CGC signed by the Award Planning Committee Secretary, Mr Innocent Orok, the CGC has redeemed and repositioned the Service especially in the areas of revenue collection, anti-smuggling activities, trade facilitation, national security, staff welfare and inter-agency collaboration. Others include infrastructural upgrading, Information and Communication Technology, and Corporate Social Responsibility, among others.

“It is also incontestable that your record-breaking performance has attracted national and international laurels to you, the Service, and Nigeria as a whole. Unarguably, it is partly for these reasons that the Leadership Newspaper Group recently honoured you with the award of the Public Service Personality of the Year.

“We, the maritime journalists, comprising both print, electronic and online media covering the beat, are happy to be part of this history-making with you as partners in progress.

“In appreciation of your superlative performance and, by extension, your unrelenting support to the media, especially the maritime media, we nominate you as the ICONIC MARITIME PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR.”

In the same vein, Chairman of the Award Planning Committee, Dele Aderibigbe, explained that “the award is coming at no better time than during the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is looking for focused and dedicated leaders to take the Nigerian economy out of the woods.

“This honour is very symbolic. First, this is the first time in the maritime sub-sector that all the journalists covering the beat will come together to honour a deserving performer per excellence, who has made the Customs and Nigeria proud by his purposeful, professional and patriotic leadership”.

“Secondly, the Nigeria Customs Service under Adewale Adeniyi has been reconnected to international frontiers and leading in revenue collection, anti-smuggling activities, trade facilitation, ICT, modernisation, and inter-agency collaboration, among others.

“This honour by maritime journalists is also to set an agenda for other agencies of government and their appointees that the ever vibrant and dogged maritime media are watching them.

“We are inviting special guests, especially other agencies’ heads and maritime stakeholders to come and witness this great event, which is first of its kind in the Nigerian maritime industry.”

The award ceremony comes up Thursday, 16th January, 2025 at the Lagos Airport Hotel Ikeja Lagos , by 12noon prompt.