The tincan Island Customs Command of Nigeria Customs Service have emerged as the command with the highest number of promoted officers in the latest round of promotions released by the board of the service on Monday.
The Command recorded 209 promoted officers Out of the 2,707 total number of officers that were promoted.
Leading the pack of newly promoted officers from rank of Deputy Comptrollers to the rank of Customs Area Controllers include; Compt Caroline Ebun Ayo who headed the vehicle seat at TICT Terminal, Compt Yisa Dorothy Omogbehin from the Ports and Cargo Terminal vehicle seat, Comptroller Adegbite formerly heading the Post Clearance Audit (PCA) Unit and Comptroller A.M Adamu the popular anti-smuggling tzar.
Other outstanding officers among the pack of newly promoted Assistant Comptrollers to Deputy Comptrollers are; Deputy Comptroller Balogun Adedokun Wasiu from the command’s valuation unit, and Ddputy Comptroller Usman Abdul Rasaq who headed the Car Park ‘C’.
X-raying the professional records of the newly promoted officers and their contributions to the Nigeria Customs Service under the leadership of Col Hameed Ali (rtd).
Comptroller Caroline Ebun Ayo
Comptroller Ayo assumed duty at the Tin Can Island command on the 1st of April, 2019, and since then, she has brought her wealth of experience to bare.
Through her no-nonsense stance, the service has made seizures such as; 76 packages of Canabis in April 2021, seizure of 43 packages of Canabis Colorado.
Others are; detention of 2 units of Armoured Toyota Hulux pick ups 2020 and 2021 models, carton of Bardine Codeine together with Extra Strength drugs among other high profile seizures.Compt Ayo is a seasoned lawyer and technocrat, she is a product of the Command and Staff College, Gwadalada Abuja.
Comptroller Caroline Ebun Ayo made her mark while at the College and she has brought some of her experiences to bare at the Tin Can Port.
She has worked at B2, department at the command with a track record of total adherence to extant guidelines as provided by the CAC and by extension the CGC.
The CAC of Tin Can Customs, Compt Musa Abdullahi is very excited with all her achievements.
Compt A.M Adamu
Compt Adamu A.M was an enforcement tsar who moved from Federal Operations Unit to the strike force in Zone C, he is someone who has intercepted various seizures and contributed monumentally towards successes recorded at the Tin Can Island command. There is no unit that Adamu has been to, that he did not leave his record in the sands of time.
At the FOU Zone C, he was party to the over 40,000 bags of foreign rice intercepted at various times.
He was a beneficiary of one of the special promotions under the past administration of the customs service. Under the present administration of Hamed Ali, his efforts at suppressing smuggling has been felt. He has been a dedicated officer that has paid his due and still doing so.
Comptroller Yisa Dorothy-Omogbehin
Before her promotion, she was Deputy Comptroller in charge of vehicle seat at Ports and Cargo Terminal. Here is a great amazon that keyed into the vision of the Customs Area Controller, Tin Can Command, Compt Musa Abdullahi by contributing to the successes of the command.
At the Port and Cargo Terminal vehicle seat, she brought about sanity at the terminal. The vehicle seat of the terminal hitherto used to be a very rowdy place, any officer without stamina and capacity or wherewithal would not be able to last long, this is because clearing agents and other stakeholders would always want to stampede officers into taking hasty decisions.
In all of these, Compt Yisa has always stamped her feet to makes sure that the right things are always done.
Her landmark achievements includes; she was among the 9 selected pioneer officers that were trained for a year in Lome- Togo in ASYCUDA conversion course (September 1997 to September 1998). As a member of the project team, she was posted to Apapa Nigeria premier port to start ASYCUDA as a technical supervisor.
Compt Dorothy was also a member of the valuation and classification capacity building team trained by Cotecna, a destination inspection company for one year (2008) to (2009).
She was also a member of the customs team trained in Geneva Switzerland on risk management .
Compt Dorothy holds a B ,Ed degree from Ahmadu Bello University. She is from Niger state .
Before now, the Car Park C gate of the Tin Can Island port, even before its concessioning to private operators used to be a very volatile area where all manners of atrocities happen. But with the coming onboard of the present Customs Area Controller, Compt Musa Abdullahi, with the careful selection of his team, through the re-jigging of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of the command, was able to select some of the best hands to sanitize the place.
This was how AC Usman as he was formerly addressed was posted to the Car Park C.Since Usman got to the Car Park C, flying of vehicles, vandalisation and activities of wharf rats that were common at the park before, were all suppressed. He brought his professional skills to bare in sanitising the environment.Before now, there were incessant cases of vandalisation, police writing the command, but all is now in the past.
.Compt Adegbite
This is another officer that could be described as an ICT guru, he was once a TS, an APM Officer at various strategic commands. In these commands, he made his mark as an ICT savvy officer that has gone for several trainings, he is an expert in tariff, classification, valuation, risk profiling and cargo selectivity. He remains a great asset to the service.
Comptroller Adegbite was a former Deputy Comptroller in charge of Post Clearance Audit (PCA) Unit of the Tin Can command
Deputy Comptroller Balogun Adedokun Wasiu
Deputy Comptroller Balogun is a complete “Lagos boy” that has been described as a very versatile officer. He is currently the staff officer in charge of valuation unit at Tin Can Command.He was a former Public Relations Officer of Sokoto/Kebbi/Zamfara Area Command. The Area Controller looks at him as the engine room of the valuation department.
The valuation unit of the Tin Can Island Command is an assemblage of the best teams, well trained, and the officers are always up to speed with the change mantra, as well as the 3-R of the CGC in terms of vision, which are; Restructure, Reform and Raise Revenue.
The direction of the CAC, Compt Musa Abdullahi is that every transaction, Debit Note must pass through his table, this the officers have been doing very religiously.
It is therefore not a supprise that DC Balogun also benefitted. He is very versatile, knowledgeable in Tariff and Trade, knowledgeable in clarification and the entire gamut of ICT Modernisation of the Customs Service. So, he is a quintessential officer and a great asset to the service. Born and bred in Lagos, he joined Nigeria Customs Service on the 22nd March 1988. He holds a Bsc in Accounting from the University of Lagos.Other stations he has served includes;
Benue command 1988-1992Ikeja Industrial Area command 1992-96.Lilypond Area Command 1996-2001Sokoto/kebbi/zamfara Area command 2001-2009 as the PRO.Tariff and Trade Hq 2009-2012.Seme Area command 2012-2014.Murtala Muhammed Int’l Airport 2014-2015.
Lillypond Area Command 2015-2016.PTML command 2016-2018.Tariff and Trade Hq 2018 to date.DC Balogun has attended several service courses within and outside Nigeria which include specialization in valuation, classification, risk analysis and management.
A member of course 36 on policy, strategy and leadership course at the National Institute on Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru near Jos.He is married and blessed with four lovely children..
Speaking with news men, the newly promoted image maker of the command, Chief Supretendent of Customs, CSC Uche Ejesieme stated that many officers of the Command are now happy because the service under Col Hameed Ali (rtd) has transmuted from a point where professionalism and meritocracy is order of the day.
“If you look at the history of promotions since the CGC came onboard, there has been a paradigm shift from the way promotions used to be.
Today, if you go for examinations and you passed, and the available vacancy accommodates a number of people that are eligible, you can be sure that you can be promoted without lobbying anybody”
“It is pertinent to mention that the Tin Can Island Customs Command for the past three years consecutively have been able to clinch the WCO Award for excellence service to the international Customs community in terms of transparency, accountability and facilitation of trade.
“Beyond this, among the 200 countries of World Customs Organization (WCO), Nigeria Customs Service was adjudged part of the 14 that have been seen to align with the Kyoto Convention for simplification of customs processes and procedures.
We are happy that the officers have paid their dues and would continue to pay their dues”
“Everybody is happy because promotions in the service is now based on merit. However, it is not that anybody that lost did not pass, its just that sometimes, the available vacancy is also a determining factor” Ejesieme said..
