Customs Areas Controller, Tin Can Island Command, Comptroller Musa Abdullahi.

BY FRANCIS EZEM

The Nigeria Customs Service, Tin Can Island Command has made a strong case for the integration of female officers of the service into regional and global women’s professional associations such as the African Women in Maritime WIMAFRICA and Women in Shipping Trade Association WISTA, among others.

WIMAFRICA, as the name suggests, is a regional body covering all female experts and operators in the continent’s maritime industry, which was formed in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2015 following the adoption of a common platform of action for all African women in the maritime industry, while WISTA, which has a Nigerian chapter, is a global body for women in shipping and related trade across the globe.

Deputy Comptroller of the command in charge of the Enforcement Unit, DC Dera Nnadi, who represented the Customs Area Controller, Comptroller Musa Abdullahi, spoke in an interview on the sideline of the just concluded Second Continental Conference and Annual General Meeting of WIMAFRICA with the theme: Trade Facilitation for Africa’s integration-Prospects and Challenges, observed that it was high time female officers were integrated into such bodies.

According to him, the service basically is charged with the responsibility of implementing Federal Government fiscal policies, arguing that such female officers would provide the link between the service and industry operators, which makes for better policy implementation.

“You know that if female Customs officers are members of WIMAFRICA for instance, they will closely interact with other women in the other aspects of the maritime industry and by so doing, feel their pulse and provide the service with a feedback mechanism that would help shape the approach of the service to policy implementation issues”.

“Good enough, there are so many top senior female officers, who also make up management team of the service, so interacting closely with the various stakeholders as members of such professional groups would enable the service understand and appreciate its publics better and thus work more harmoniously with them”, he said.

He cited the instance of the operations of the service in Lagos, where women hold some strategic positions as the Assistant Comptroller General/Zonal Coordinator Zone A, Lagos, the Customs Area Comptrollers in charge of Murtala Mohammed Airport Command and the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal KLT, and PTML Commands, among others in addition to several others at the headquarters and other commands and units.

DC Nnadi, who was at various times Public Relations Officer in charge of Lagos Zone A and later that of Apapa Area 1 Command, disclosed that in filing his report on the event to the top management of the command, he would indicate the need to integrate female officers into the folds of other professionals in the maritime industry.

Newly elected president of WIMAFRICA, Mr. Jean Chiazor-Anishere, while speaking in an interview, noted that one of her priority projects would be to mentor younger women into joining the maritime industry and by so doing bring them into the fold of the association.

She had also pledged to further expand the scope of the association to the International Maritime Organisation IMO and other global and regional bodies.