By Edu Abade
Comptroller- General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Bashir Adewale Adeniyi has said journalists covering the maritime sector deserve better welfare in order to excel in the discharge of their duties with the overall goal of enhancing the nation’s maritime and blue economy potential.
He stated this during the Iconic Maritime Personality of the Year 2024 Award and Dinner organized by the maritime media in recognition of his exemplary leadership and management of the NCS since assuming office in 2023, insisting that if industry players who started small in the beginning have grown their businesses in leaps and bounds, media practitioners who have been reporting their activities deserve to grow and expand.
“Journalists should be able to have some kind of insurance cover and even own their personal houses as is obtainable in other climes. In the maritime sector, we have seen businessmen who started very small, but who have today grown their businesses to global standard.
“These businesses have been reported by media practitioners, some of whom have not made significant progress in terms of welfare and well being. So I believe that journalists deserve some level of comfort in terms of accessing the basic needs of life, which will go a long way in enhancing their livelihoods and their profession,” he stated.
Adeniyi, who also urged all the maritime media associations to come together under one umbrella so as to maximize the gains of synergy and access better opportunities from stakeholders, argued that the proliferation of maritime associations have hindered potential and welfare opportunities from stakeholders.
He decried the proliferation of associations in the freight forwarding sub-sector of the maritime industry, maintaining that multiple associations create confusion for policymakers and hinder effective consultation on vital policies.
The Customs helmsman, who urged freight forwarding groups to unite under one umbrella, to enable them to present a unified position to the government on matters affecting their industry, charged Prince Shittu Olayiwola and Akeem Olanrewaju to spearhead the move, given their influential positions in the freight forwarding industry.
Adeniyi also noted that he had resisted receiving awards until he got the call that all the maritime journalists’ associations have come together to honour him, which he described as ‘a very symbolic gesture’, adding: “We can have all the associations collapsed into one maritime association for a common interest.
“Training programmes can be organised where all maritime journalists’ will be trained and various events can be organised. An insurance package should be put on the welfare of maritime journalists as well as housing mortgage so they could have decent accommodations for themselves. If all other operators within the industry are prospering and the journalists who report them are not, there will be problems.
“I also believe that your welfare should be the concern of all stakeholders. There is a lot the Customs can do for journalists, but there is more they can do for themselves. Let us begin to work on initiatives that improve your welfare. Journalists should be able to access health insurance schemes and mortgage schemes for their own homes. These can be achieved, seed money can be raised and then have these schemes started,” Adeniyi said.
Earlier in his opening speech, the chairman of the event, Prince Olayiwola Shittu said the Country has had so many Comptroller-Generals of Customs, but Adeniyi, who happens to be the 14th CGC is a unique personality who deserves the award.
While appreciating the CGC for advising the Federal Government to suspend the implementation of the 4 percent increase of Free on Board (FOB) levy, he also pointed out the changes he has made in the operations of the Nigeria Customs Service.
The maritime journalist associations that conferred the ward on Adeniyi are the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN), League of Maritime Editors (LOME), Association of Maritime Journalists of Nigeria (AMJON), Maritime Journalists Association of Nigeria (MAJAN), Shipping Correspondents Association of Nigeria (SCAN), Online Maritime Media Association of Nigeria (OMMAN) and Congress of Nigerian Maritime Media Practitioners (CONMMEP), as well as neutral journalists.
The high point of the event was the presentation of the Iconic Maritime Personality of the Year 2024 Award and a life-sized portrait of the CGC.
