Customs CG, Adeniyi, bags Iconic Maritime Personality of the Year award

On Thursday 16th January, 2025, the Comptroller General of Customs, Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR, will receive the award of the Iconic Maritime Personality of the Year 2024.

The Customs boss is being honored by maritime journalists for his sterling and excellent performance since  assumption of office as the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) in 2023.

The unanimous decision to honour Adeniyi was taken by all maritime journalists under the bodies of Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN), League of Maritime Editors (LOME), Association of Maritime Journalists of Nigeria (AMJON), Maritime Journalists Association of Nigeria (MAJAN), Shipping Correspondents Association of Nigeria (SCAN), Online Maritime Media Association of Nigeria (OMMAN) and Congress of Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (CONMMEP).

Mr. Dele Aderibigbe, Chairman of Award Planning Committee and Mr. Innocent Orok, Secretary, made this development known in a statement in Lagos.

According to the planning committee, “There is no gainsaying you have redeemed and repositioned the Service in all areas including Revenue collection, Anti-smuggling activities, Trade facilitation, National security, Staff welfare, inter – agencies Collaboration, infrastructural upgrading, Information and Communication Technology, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), amongst 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 the prints, electronics 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 for a Special Award as the ICONIC MARITIME PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR.

“The award ceremony has come at no better time than, this regime of “Renewed Hope” agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is looking for focused and dedicated leaders to take the Nigeria economy out of the woods.

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

“Secondly, the Nigeria Customs Service under Adewale Adeniyi have 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 is 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 is billed for the Apapa Port Customs Command Auditorium. Time is 12noon prompt.