Customs Task Journalists On Unbiased Reporting

The Western Coordinator of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Zone A, Assistant Comptroller of Customs (ACG), Victor Gbemudu has advised journalists to embrace accurate reporting as means of educating the public of the activities of the service. He said this last week while addressing the set of journalists going through on a two-day training at the command in Lagos geared towards sensitizing the public through media. In his opening remark, the Coordinator of the Western Zone of the service, Assistant

Comptroller General (ACG) Victor Gbemudu, enjoined the journalists to avail themselves of the great opportunity so that they would be better equipped to properly educate the public on the activities of the service. According to him “There is a need to educate the journalists on the operations of the service, so that they will in turn inform the society adequately.” He further stated that journalists have a mandate from the public to report accurately therefore should make sure that they benefit maximally from the training.

The Customs Area Controller (CAC), Comptroller Charles Edike reiterated this fact and advised journalists to participate fully and actively in the training so as to be properly informed about the recent innovations in the service and to be routinely at par with the activities of the service.

He remarked that “it is good for journalists to carry out their assignments without bias, be on the same page with us and report to the society correctly” while tasking the journalists to regularly key in into the system of the service in order to update themselves with the latest news for accurate reportage.

On the other hand, the National Public Relation Officer of the service, Wale Adeniyi said that Nigeria Customs Service had been reported in a bad light over the years and as a result the entire populace sees them and their activities as oppressive and unnecessarily strict, hence the necessity to enlighten the public through the media about what is actually obtained in the Nigeria Customs and to correct this mistaken view.

He stated further that one of the functions of the service was to enforce government policies as they do not make policies and when they carry out their duties, the society erroneously attributes everything they do according to the law of the land as damaging to the society thus, the need for the training is to re-educate the public through media about the service.

The training was well-packed as trainers otherwise referred to as certified master trainers took turns in explaining, enlightening, enunciating, educating the journalists about processes, and procedural patterns of the activities of the service. The representatives of the trainees, who were issued with certificates of participation at the end of the training, commended Nigeria Customs for the innovative and enlightening training and promised to utilize what they learnt for effective and unbiased reportage of Customs’ activities In a related development, the ACG Victor Gbemudu also used the occasion to commission the ultra-modern ICT center and the new communication tower.

The center is for training and retraining of Customs officers, to keep them abreast with recent innovations in the service, while the tower which according to the ACG was built to withstand elemental interferences is for effective communication network. 15,000 Passengers Patronize Rail Transport In Lagos Daily- NRC More than 15,000 passengers patronize the railway in Lagos alone in eighteen trips per day the corporation has said.