The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Bashir Adeniyi, has called on officers and men of the Service to uphold the highest standards of integrity as the organisation intensifies reforms to enhance trade facilitation and regional cooperation.
Adeniyi made the call on Thursday in Abuja at the opening of the 2025 Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC) Conference themed “Building Future Partnerships: Lessons from Customs – Partnership for African Cooperation in Trade (PACT)”.
The conference, which spans two days, is designed to consolidate the gains of the recently concluded Customs–PACT (C-PACT) Conference jointly convened by the NCS and Afreximbank, with support from the World Customs Organisation (WCO), to reposition African trade within the framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
In his address, the CGC emphasized that professional conduct, regulatory compliance, and operational integrity must remain the foundation of Customs operations across all commands.
“You cannot sustain external credibility without internal integrity,” he said. “This conference is turning the mirror on ourselves — not to criticise, but to honestly assess where we stand, recognise what is not working, and collectively commit to fixing it.”
Adeniyi noted that while the Service has made strides in policy reforms and revenue generation, internal inconsistencies threaten its ability to achieve full institutional excellence. He identified gaps in coordination, technology utilisation, knowledge management and communication—issues he said must be addressed to strengthen the NCS’s transition from a “good” administration to a “great” one.
“We have technology that works brilliantly in one location but remains unused elsewhere. We have officers with innovative ideas but no channels to express them. We lose institutional knowledge when seasoned officers retire without their experience properly documented,” he said.
He emphasised that the CGC Conference aims to embed the successful principles that guided the C-PACT conference—including disciplined execution, unified messaging and effective coordination—into daily Customs operations nationwide.
Over the two days, participants will deliberate on strengthening institutional cohesion, enhancing capacity for implementing modernisation tools and innovations, and aligning operations with WCO standards and policy frameworks.
Adeniyi also expressed concern that some reforms initiated by previous administrations were abandoned once leadership changed, urging officers to treat such initiatives as institutional rather than personal legacies.
He encouraged participants to propose realistic and sustainable solutions to operational challenges, warning that the Service cannot effectively fulfil its national mandate if gaps in coordination and capacity persist.
Despite the internal challenges, Adeniyi affirmed that the NCS has continued to record significant progress, including consistently meeting—and exceeding—its revenue targets in recent years, with strong performance already reflected in its 2025 projections.
, Bashir Adeniyi, has called on officers and men of the Service to uphold ...){kind=link}