GENTLEMAN OFFICER, COMPT GAMBO ALIYU RAISES FOU ‘A’ REVENUE BAR; GENERATES N3.1 BILLION, MAKES N15 BILLION SEIZURES IN 9 MONTHS
By Timothy Paul Okorocha
Seest thou a man diligent in his duties, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mere men’, so says the Holy Book.
Just in nine months, the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) zone A , has transformed not only as a flagship anti-smuggling unit, but also one that has witnessed the recovery and generation of highest revenue in its history.
Imagine; more than N3.1 billion raked in through statutory interventions and remitted into government coffers through the various seaport commands where such goods originated from.
This is through the activation of debit notes on imports which had one way or the other evaded correct duty payments.
Compt Gambo Aliyu takes that unique credit of generating more than N3.1 billion between December last year and now, as against the yearly targetted N400 million given to it by the Headquarters. This is the lot of an officer in charge of his operations.
Humble and meek; he neither looks like a revenue nor enforcement officer, but he is ably both. He has combined intelligence, respect and tact to engage industry operators in the last nine months; no wonder, he achieved a lot , as if he has spent two years, judging from his feats.
Aliyu comes across as one of the best brains the Service flaunts currently. Comptrollers Oshoba of Premier port command and Balogun of the Federal Operations Unit, zone C are no less in that club.
In revenue generation, he has broken records, in anti-smuggling, he is an expert. In 9 months, about N15 billion seizures were credited to him.
They range from hard drugs,fake pharmaceutical products and other assorted contraband.
He was not making noise about his operations. He has been policing economic saboteurs operating in the western region. Vowing to crush smugglers, and he did.
He had embraced the deployment of requisite tools and techniques which positioned the anti-smuggling drive to lean away from reactive to predictive enforcement.
This measure saw the unit deploying Geospatial technology which seeks to improve interdiction success rates, better and timely reporting, improved situational awareness and better resource management through the use of spatial analytics to elicit Geoint outcomes.
According to him, they had previously depended solely on Humint and Osint, which are prone to vulnerability in their area of responsibility
To economic saboteurs in the south west region, they have never taken his cool composure for granted. His kind of ‘roforofo dance’ with smugglers look deceitful, as his mien is a strategy to get you into his net.
Having gone round sensitive units and commands in the Customs Service in nearly three decades of patriotic stewardship, Compt Gambo remains one of the best anti-smuggling experts the service today boasts of.
He has not failed in any responsibility, his humility is second to none, his loyalty to the No 1 is total.
These are the characteristics of a man whose service is still potent in turning around the customs.
In the past six months of this year, die-hard smugglers operating in the South west region of the country have reclined into their cocoons to avoid being arrested alongside their illicit items. This development is courtesy of the shrewd approach to anti-smuggling activities of the Nigeria Customs Service’s (NCS) Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone A, Ikeja Lagos, under the able leadership of the gentleman Area Controller (CAC) of the Command, Comptroller Gambo Aliyu.