Maritime stakeholders are anticipating a great deal of excitement as the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, Col Hameed Ali (Rtd), will open the Annual Training Retreat of the Association of Maritime Journalists of Nigeria (AMJON) for 2023.

At the retreat scheduled for Thursday, May 25 2023, representatives from the Nigeria Customs Service and the National Inland Waterways Authority will discuss salient operational issues affecting their operations.

With the theme Enhancing Capacity/Efficiency in Modern News Reportage, AMJON, seeks to hone the reportorial skills of its members in this new era of multiplicity of news outlets and the changing dynamics of news reportage.

According to the President of AMJON, Mr. Paul Ogbuokiri, the 2023 training is expected to sharpen the skills and intellect of its members in line with present realities of news reportage.

Chairman Organizing Committee for the Conference, Mr. Kelvin Kagbare disclosed that the event has attracted members of the Presidential Standing Task Team, of PSTT, who shall participate and interact with AMJON members on its operations.

The National Inland Waterways Authority, NIWA, is also featuring at the AMJON Retreat to speak on its new Autonomy status and how it affects its national mandate.

While calling AMJON members to maximize the opportunity which the retreat offers, he as well charged them to be prepared for an intensive session with quest lecturers and presenters at the event.

“There is a lot that is happening in the Maritime industry that is either under reported, ignored or reported wrongly. Often times, you see terms and terminologies applied wrongly or misused there by causing confusion among stakeholders”

“While it is convenient and easy to blame the Journalists for such errors, heads of agencies have not helped matters by sidelining the media from several of their activities,” Ogbuokiri said.

The president of AMJON, Mr. Paul Ogbuokiri emphasized that the 2023 AMJON training/retreat was designed as an in-house program which was bought into by relevant agencies who sought to use the opportunity to illuminate on their services and operations.

Chairman of the planning committee stressed the importance of clarity of purpose when customs intervenes at ports and border posts, such as Duty Paid Value, Debit Note, Import/Export Prohibition Lists, Trade Facilitation, Revenue generation, Anti-Smuggling (who is a smuggler, among others, even as the PSTT and NIWA interact with AMJON at its 2023 Retreat and Training session.