Babatunde Olomu: Thirty-Five Years of Duty, Discipline and Distinction

BY FUNMI ALUKO

For the Nigeria Customs Service, the retirement of Assistant Comptroller-General Babatunde Olomu is more than the formal exit of another senior officer from active service. It marks the closing chapter of a career shaped by duty, institutional loyalty, professional competence and an uncommon commitment to getting the job done.

Olomu retired from the Nigeria Customs Service on Thursday, September 24, 2026, after a career in which he earned a reputation as one of the Service’s dependable and highly trusted headquarters officers.

For many of his colleagues, particularly those who encountered him in the demanding corridors of Customs Headquarters, Olomu represented a certain type of officer: knowledgeable, composed, painstaking and thoroughly conversant with the workings of the institution.

He was, in the familiar language of the Service, a quintessential headquarters man—an officer whose understanding of Customs administration, procedures and operational imperatives made him a valuable resource in the system.

But the strength of his career was not confined to the offices of Customs Headquarters. His brief deployment to the Premier Port, Apapa, offered perhaps one of the clearest demonstrations that his competence was not merely administrative or theoretical. At Apapa, where the volume, complexity and commercial pressure of port operations routinely test the experience of even seasoned Customs officers, Olomu proved that he could translate institutional knowledge into effective field leadership.

His tour at the port provided another dimension to his professional profile. There, the Customs officer had to deal with the realities of cargo examination, trade facilitation, revenue assurance, enforcement, stakeholder relations and the many competing pressures that define Nigeria’s busiest maritime gateway. Olomu approached those responsibilities with the same methodical professionalism that had characterised his years at the Headquarters.

For those who were conversant with customs trade at Apapa port, his strength was not necessarily in making the loudest noise. Rather, it was in understanding the issues, interrogating the facts, applying the rules and ensuring that the responsibilities entrusted to him were discharged with the seriousness they deserved.

That quality of quiet effectiveness became one of the defining features of his career. Within the Service, officers of Olomu’s generation were products of a Customs institution where experience mattered greatly and where knowledge of procedures, laws, regulations and operational practice could determine the difference between a decision that strengthened the system and one that created avoidable complications.

Olomu belonged firmly to that school. His career was built around institutional knowledge, but it was sustained by adaptability. As Customs administration evolved from a largely manual system into an increasingly technology-driven organisation, the demands on senior officers changed considerably. The modern Customs officer had to understand not only enforcement and revenue collection but also trade facilitation, digital processes, inter-agency cooperation and the broader economic implications of Customs decisions.

Olomu’s professional journey straddled these changing eras. That experience became particularly valuable because Customs Headquarters is not simply another duty post. It is where policies are interpreted, operational decisions are coordinated, reports are analysed and the activities of commands across the country are brought into the larger framework of the Service.

An officer who succeeds there must possess more than technical knowledge. He must understand the institution itself; and to say that Olomu did; is merely stating the obvious.

Yet, perhaps, the more telling measure of his career was the confidence placed in him. In an institution as large and strategically important as the Nigeria Customs Service, trust is an important professional currency. It is earned over time through consistency, discretion, competence and an ability to handle responsibility without unnecessary drama.

Thus, Olomu’s reputation rested substantially on those attributes. His colleagues came to know him as an officer who could be relied upon to understand an assignment, examine its implications and pursue it to a logical conclusion.

That reputation followed him into senior responsibility. His elevation to the rank of Assistant Comptroller-General was therefore not merely a progression in rank; it was a recognition of a career that had accumulated substantial institutional experience.

And when he was deployed to Apapa, one of the most strategically important commands in the Customs architecture, the assignment provided an opportunity for that experience to be tested in one of the Service’s most demanding environments.

Apapa is where Customs meets the Nigerian economy in particularly visible form. Every decision taken there has potential consequences for importers, exporters, manufacturers, freight forwarders, terminal operators, shipping interests, government revenue and national trade policy.

It is also a place where enforcement and trade facilitation must constantly be balanced. Olomu’s approach was to work within that demanding environment without losing sight of the larger responsibility of the Service.

His tenure may have been brief, but it was significant enough to reinforce the impression that the man who had built his career in the administrative and policy environment of Headquarters was equally capable of operating effectively on the frontline.

That balance between headquarters competence and field experience is one of the more valuable attributes a senior Customs officer can possess. For Olomu, it became a defining feature of his professional identity.

Beyond positions and postings, however, there is the personal dimension of a career in public service. Retirement brings the numbers, titles and appointments into perspective.

What remains is the record of years spent serving the country, working with colleagues, solving institutional problems and carrying responsibilities that are often performed away from public attention.

Olomu’s career belongs to that category of service. He did not need constant public visibility to establish his professional credentials. His reputation was built within the system: through assignments, relationships, decisions and the confidence of those who worked with him.

That may ultimately be the most enduring tribute to an officer. As he bowed out, the Nigeria Customs Service loses a reservoir of institutional experience accumulated over decades. The loss is not merely in the departure of an ACG; it is in the exit of a senior officer who understood the Service from the inside, appreciated its complexities and contributed to its continuing evolution.

For his colleagues and the many officers who encountered him along the way, Olomu’s retirement is therefore both a farewell and a moment of reflection. Indeed, it is a reminder that institutions are built not only by dramatic reforms and headline-making operations, but also by the steady accumulation of professional conduct by officers who show up, understand their responsibilities and perform them faithfully.

It bears repeating that Babatunde Olomu’s career offers that lesson. His story is one of duty accepted, competence demonstrated, responsibility discharged and honour earned over a thirty-five-year period of passionate service to fatherland.

And as the uniform gives way to retirement, the record of service perhaps, the only permanent memento remains, and intact.

His duty transcended competence, discipline, and passion to include the honour of service with abiding loyalty.  Loyalty is a stubborn and most challenging  routine official chore, it is hardly faked; because, before it is dusk, there are likely chances it would have manifested. By omission or commission.

This reporter has seen many area controllers recite the CGC’s epaulets  in line with their para military procedures. The one that tickles me most in the rhymes being PSC Dagger – explained to me to mean Pass Staff Course Dagger (PSC+). The recitation logically been very rich career accomplishments, always sounds musical to me, most especially, anytime Olomu  was the one reciting it. He engages in the ritual in a full throaty, serious and concentrated manner, with the attention given to the national anthem, you will think his entire life depended on maintaining the self-established sonorous vibration he has created for it.

ACG Babatunde Olomu will not only be missed by his colleague officers in the Service, but also by his media colleagues and friends. But since retirement is a process one cannot evade, we can only say ‘bon voyage’ in his future endeavours. He made the Service proud, we will continue to be proud of him.