THE EMERGING TIGERS PUTTING PANACHE IN THEIR JOBS AT THE CUSTOMS PR UNITS

The practice of Public Relations which became prevalent in the UK by Basil Clark for the establishment of editorial services in 1924 has spread to other facets of daily activities. They are today used for consumer and lifestyle which helps in gaining publicity for a particular product or service. It is commonly also used in engaging government departments to influence public policy or perception. The other very important area it has played wonderful role is in crisis communication which portrays it as an image maker. Public relations as we can concisely extract literally is the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public. The aim is to persuade the public and stakeholders to maintain a certain point of view about an individual or organization as the case may be. Common activities include speaking at conferences, working with the press and so on. Public relations practice generally is highly unregulated but many of the professionals voluntarily adhere to the code of conducts of one or more professional bodies to avoid exposure for ethical violations. One of the organizations in Nigeria that has in recent time done much to improve on her public relations department is the Nigeria customs service. The training and the induction into the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) in 2014 and the most recent has done great work on the image of the paramilitary outfit, the Nigeria Customs Service. The service in itself is not relenting in her effort to update the

Public Relations Officers with external and internal training. An example is the recent gathering of Nigeria Customs Public Relations Officers at the Customs Training College, Ikeja Lagos for a retreat to improve on their use of Digital media for Public Communication. The Training Retreat was organized by the service for its spokespersons and public communicators in collaboration with Yushau A. Shuaib of PRNigeria. The three-day training and retreat had this as its theme, “Up scaling PR Tools and Strategies for Optimum Performance” for its public relations officers across the nation.  The event was part of a series of ongoing intellectual empowerment programmes aimed at strengthening the capacity of the officers of the Nigeria Customs Service. In line with the tradition and mission of this magazine, we recognize emerging Tigers in their various departments in relations to their exploits. In the Public Relations departments of various commands of the Nigeria Customs Service where the media has exclusive interactions with these officers, these officers are remarkably outstanding in their recent activities and approach to the critical stakeholders. This view may not be the same with everybody depending on which perspective they are taking their stand. The present National Customs Public Relations Officer, CSC Maiwada Abdullahi no doubt has proved that he is equal to the task of leading the pack of these other brilliant commands' public Relations Officers. The youthful, chubby and workaholic officer is working assiduously to meet up the demands of a former celebrated NPRO, the present Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR. In line with paramilitary ideologies, CSC Maiwada should be elevated to march the present position he occupies as an Assistant Comptroller if not for any reason, at least for his hard work, diligence and other merits. Others who are doing exceedingly marvelous are CSC Usman of Apapa. This jovial and interactive public relations guru fortunately went through the same Ogun 1 Command that looks like a midwife to many of these PROs. Taking of Ogun 1 command reminds us of CSC Oloyode. At PTML is another Assistant Comptroller in the making, CSC Yakubu who is seriously keeping the pace over there. We will also give it to CSC Jerry Attah who cut his teeth in dealing with humans at FOU, Zone 'A' Ikeja but now at FOU, Zone 'C' Owerri. SC Duniya is no doubt doing excellently beautiful in managing awareness services at the FOU, Zone 'A' which invariably looks like the Western zonal headquarters with our sister, Ann. At the Seme border we cannot forget SC Husseini. The reception and attention one gets from CSC Lomba Benjamin and SC Tangwan of Onne and Eastern Marine commands respectively after travelling a long distance to visit the commands is a pass mark.