The Vice President, Kashim Shettima on Monday, charged the newly appointed Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Adewale Adeniyi to “ restore professionalism” to the agency.
Shettima stated this while decorating Adeniyi as the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), describing his appointment by President Bola Tinubu as “a morale booster for officers in the service”.
The Vice President, while congratulating Adeniyi on his appointment, stated that this will restore hope and professionalism to the Nigerian Customs Service, while it will also encourage every Customs officer to aspire to occupy the pinnacle of his or her profession.
“I wish you well, on behalf of the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces, Congratulations, once again,” the VP added.
Speaking to journalists shortly after his decoration ceremony, Adeniyi expressed gratitude to President Bola Tinubu for appointing a serving officer as the head of the agency, assuring him and Nigerians of a more effective and innovation driven Customs Service.
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He said “In the last eight years, the Nigeria Customs Service has gone through a period of transition. In some areas, we recorded progress – we made remarkable progress in E-Customs; we made a lot of breakthroughs in capacity building. But the Customs Service can still live to its full potential when we bring in more innovation to drive Customs operations. These are the kind of things we are looking at in the years ahead.
“We are going to be professional in our approach, there are a number of key stakeholders that we are going to be working with, it is a very onerous task but we are going to be working alongside other stakeholders and partners that we have identified.
“We intend to come up with innovations that will carry along all partners and stakeholders. We are going to leverage technology and innovation to break new grounds in Customs operations”
Recalled that Adeniyi had served as Customs spokesman for almost two decades until January 2017 when he was redeployed to the Apapa Area Command as a Deputy Comptroller.
He was later promoted to the rank of Comptroller in 2017 and appointed Deputy Commandant of the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada, Abuja.”
In 2019 he was redeployed to serve as the Controller of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Command, Lagos.
He was promoted to the rank of Assistant Comptroller General in February 2020 shortly after he supervised the seizure of $8.07 million cash being illegally taken out of Nigeria through the E-Wing of the international airport tarmac.
He was subsequently posted to head the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada, Abuja as Commandant.
In recognition of his service, former President Muhammadu Buhari, on October 11, 2022, conferred the national honour of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) on Adeniyi.
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