The Acting Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, has hinted that the Nigeria Customs Service will take necessary steps to sanitise the operations of licensed customs agents.
“We are going to hold a meeting of customs agents to ensure that we bring the required sanity into our operations,” Adeniyi told newly elected executives of the Association of Nigeria License Customs Agents (ANLCA) and those of the Customs Consultative Committee (CCC) who visited him in Abuja on Wednesday.
He urged the newly elected leaders of ANLCA to consider their peculiar privilege in sustaining peace amongst them, which, according to him, will encourage the service to take them as vital partners.
“I want to use this opportunity to rekindle the good understanding and peace between yourselves so that we will be able to synergize in eradicating threats against revenue collection and national security.
“The ball is now in the court of the executive, new management committee and, of course, the board members.
I urge you to swing into action and start work because there is much to do to bring sanity and professionalism to the industry,” he said.
He said that the Nigeria Customs Service now shares the challenge of consolidating the recent victory with the association, which will clear the way for innovations in the automation of procedures and benefit authorised economic operators.
On his part, the Chairman of the Customs Consultative Committee, Aare Hakeem Olanrewaju, said the visit of the committee to the Customs headquarters was to present the newly elected national executives of ANLCA to the Comptroller-General.
Olanrewaju, who congratulated Adeniyi on his appointment by President Bola Ahmad Tinubu, also assured the CGC that the association was back on track after prolonged disputes.
Also speaking, the newly elected National President of ANLCA, Emenike Kingsley Nwokeoji, appreciated the Customs boss for taking the bull by the horns to engineer the peace deal between the various factions of the association, affirming that his team had already swung into action to move the association forward.
“Your appointment is timely and most deserving (at this time) that our dear country needs the most for economic and development growth,” he said.