……Resuscitates Community Consultative Forum
Aiming at New Customs and a bid to fulfill Community Social Responsibility (CSR ),The Ag. Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi has put a deliberate recruitment plan for the indigenes of border communities into the Nigeria Customs Service.
In same vein, bring back to life Community Consultative Forum , CCF an important tool considered for resolving issues causing crises, especially within border areas.
The CG revealed this , when he presented a paper titled “The Nigeria Customs Service and the Public Relations Challenges” at the 17th International Public Relations Congress on Wednesday, 16th August 2023.
The CGC opined that people needs to generate interest to have a better understanding of the operations of the service.
Hence deliberate actions will be taken to create awareness about the service’s operations.
He emphasized that this CCF initiative has been very successful, especially in border states, evidenced in Ogun, Katsina and Lagos, where this strategy has miraculously stemmed the rate of conflicts. The secret of this success, dear friends was not ammunition but communication. he emphasised.
“We discovered that in so many cases, people are always very ignorant of what we do, and it is based on the ignorance that they’re impatient to criticise us”, he said.
“So, we will also want to make a deliberate action to create awareness and let people have knowledge about what we do”, he stated.
On Customs Strategic Communication Plan, he maintained that,
“It has been our culture to complement our vigorous appearances with a consistently soothing voice in line with the overall corporate objectives”.
“The strategy of putting the media in the middle is something we do to ensure we get our information across to the people.
According to him, the forum, will enlists senior officers and members of management of Area Commands in Customs on one side and traditional institutions, community leaders, traders’ unions, and youth leaders on the other side.
“This program featured periodic engagement with traditional leaders, meetings with associations, traders, and youth leaders, dialogues, identifying their problems, and showing them what the laws say, what is permitted, and what is prohibited. We laughed, prayed, and talked with them without compromising professionalism”, he noted.
“In a couple of years, major issues causing crises, clashes, and conflicts have been mitigated, majority of the communities became at peace with Customs activities, and we became at peace with the community residents”, he revealed.
He noted that the Customs community relations strategy will not end in a communication forum, but that the service is already making concerted efforts towards community projects that will ultimately benefit border communities and beyond, some of which include Karu Hospital, tagged as “The Flagship Customs CSR Program, NCS Primary and Secondary School in Idiroko among others.
