Mohammed Shosanya
The Acting Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi,has expressed optimism that President Bola Tinubu’s appointment as the Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States,ECOWAS, will engender better regional integration, cooperation, border security and coordinated monetary affairs.
Adeniyi,who disclosed this when met with the President on Tuesday,said part of the discussions with President Tinubu was to actively engage Customs administrations across the borders, particularly the strategic ones and collaborate to achieve common objectives of border security and regional integration.
“I will be paying an official visit to the Republic of Benin, to have discussions with the Customs Administration of Benin to address the issues of border security, importation across the border, and more importantly, the deployment of technological solutions to very complex border problems,” he added.
The Acting Comptroller-General of Customs also assured of a pragmatic move towards decongestion of Nigerian ports to enhance revenue generation, facilitation of legitimate trade and suppression of smuggling.
“I am sure you are very familiar with the Presidential Advisory Council and there is a document which has been made public. Our discussions also centre around aligning the vision of Customs, the activities of Customs in short, medium and long terms with those nobles objectives set out in PAC documents,” he noted.
Speaking on the rumour of integrating government agencies, Adewale said he is not privy to any information about that yet adding that, though there is a common base between all the agencies that are generating revenue for the Country and there are some cross-cutting issues.
“There are some areas where we overlap and there are some areas where we can complement each other but in terms of bringing the agencies together under one organization, we are yet to get details of that and we will be waiting to get the details and see how that pans out,” he noted.
According to him, the ongoing processes to review the current situation against the objective of the border closure itself with the assurance that when the borders are reopened, it is not going to be the subject of rumour in any way.
He commended the appointment of the President Bola Tinubu as the Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States.
He expressed gratitude to the President for finding him worthy to be the Acting Comptroller General of Customs, while stating that the opportunity to meet with the President is fruitful and engaging.
He added:”Mr President is a very good listener. We had discussions regarding what Customs can bring to the table, in terms of actualizing the vision of renewed hope for Nigeria, bridging the gaps in revenue generation, enforcement strategies, and most importantly, promoting port efficiency and competitiveness.”