Acting Customs CG Pledges to Enhance Community Relations Strategies

...as Senate President Set up Committee to Investigate Customs Community Relationship in Katsina Axis

ZAINAB JUNAID

Just as the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio setup ad-hoc committee to investigate the intrigues behind the incessant attacks unleashed on the patrol teams of Kebbi and Katsina Area Commands of the Nigeria Customs Service(NCS) which led to the death of two officers and left one in serious injury, Ag. Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR, has pledged to prioritize community relations in border areas. 

Senator Godswill Akpabio had earlier set up a 7-man ad-hoc Committee during plenary session after Abdulaziz Yar’adua (APC, Katsina Central) moved a motion to study Customs Community relationship in Katsina axis, and also assigned Francis Fadahunsi (PDP, Osun Central), a retired Assistant Comptroller-General Customs to chair the committee.

While on a courtesy visit to the Ag. Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR, at the Service headquarter in Abuja,  on Tuesday, 29 August 2023, the committee on Customs and Excise, led by Senator Francis Ade Fadahunsi MFR, relayed their findings to the CGC by submitting a progress report on their fact-finding mission.

In response, the Ag. CGC welcomed their show of commitment to helping Customs enhance its policy of improving border relationship and maintained that the Service, under his leadership, will continue to prioritize community relations in border areas to re-smoothen the discharge of the Service's constitutional mandates. 

His words, “We can't afford to antagonize any member of our host community. Because at the end of the day, what use is the facilitation of trade and the revenue we are generating if the communities are dead? So whatever we do, we do it in the interest of the community; that's the community that we're serving.”

He said that the Nigeria Customs Service will soon implement a new pattern of community engagement with Nigerians through initiating strategic corporate social responsibility programmes, which, according to him, will prioritize their social stability, welfare and well-being in all ramifications.

The Customs Boss, who recalled how the Service has been sustaining a Secondary School in Idiroko for nearly three decades now, said, “In terms of being responsive to the needs of citizens, we will be requesting the kind support and understanding of the National Assembly to carry out such meaningful projects and reserve some slots of employment to the members of our host communities.”

The Ag. Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR, had often urged community members to see customs operatives as fellow Nigerians carrying out national duty within their communities.

Earlier, the Chairman of the Senate ad-hoc Committee on Customs and Excise, Senator Francis Ade Fadahunsi MFR, Senator Fadahunsi MFR, who commended the Acting Comptroller General's approach towards improving community relations and pledged that his committee members would continue to maintain a cordial working relationship with the Service, which will pave the way to achieving its target.

The delegation of the committee who attended the meeting were Shuaib Salisu (Ogun Central), Kawu Sumaila (Kano South), Tony Nwoye (Anambra North), Suleiman Sadiq (Kwara North), Abdulaziz Yar’adua (Katsina Central) and Adeola Olamilekan (Ogun Central).