The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi, has bagged the Iconic Maritime Personality of the Year 2024 award, which is organised by maritime journalists.
This was contained in Tuesday’s release signed by the chairman and secretary of the Award Planning Committee, Dele Aderibigbe and Innocent Orok, respectively.
Aderebigbe explained that the need for the Nigerian maritime media practitioners to honour Adeniyi was a unanimous decision by all maritime journalists cutting across print, electronic, and online media.
“They believe that Adeniyi has registered sterling and excellent performance since he assumed office as the customs boss,” he said.
Aderibegbe explained that the award came at a time when the president, Bola Tinubu, is looking for focused and dedicated leaders to take the Nigerian economy out of the woods.
“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 par excellence, who has made the NCS and Nigeria proud by his purposeful, professional, and patriotic leadership,” Aderibegbe said.
He pointed out that the service under the current CGC has been reconnected to international frontiers and is leading in revenue collection, anti-smuggling activities, trade facilitation, ICT, modernisation, and inter-agency collaboration, among others.
Aderebigbe stressed that the honour is also to set the 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 the first of its kind in the Nigerian maritime industry,” he said.
Earlier, the committee secretary, Orok, said, “There is no gainsaying that Adeniyi has redeemed and repositioned the service in all areas. These include revenue collection, anti-smuggling activities, trade facilitation, national security, staff welfare, inter-agency collaboration, infrastructural upgrading, information and communication technology, and corporate social responsibility, among others.”
According to Orok, it is also incontestable that Adeniyi’s record-breaking performance has attracted national and international laurels to 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,” he stated.
Orok pointed out that in appreciation of Adeniyi’s superlative performance and his unrelenting support to the media, especially the maritime media, “we nominate you as the Iconic Maritime Personality of the Year.”