The Comptroller-General (C-G) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Bashir Adeniyi, has charged personnel of the service to uphold integrity in the discharge of their duties.
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) Conference’.
The C-PACT conference, which ended on Wednesday, was convened by the NCS and Afreximbank, with support from the World Customs Organisation (WCO) aimed at repositioning African trade.
He said the standards of operation of the service personnel at their various commands should be professional and in line with stipulated regulations.
Adeniyi said the two-day CGC conference sought to build on the gains from the C-PACT conference in promoting trade facilitation and implementing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which relied on operational integrity.
“You can`t sustain external credibility without internal integrity, so this conference is turning the mirror on ourselves, not to criticise for the sake of it but to honestly assess where we are, acknowledge what is not working, and together commit ourselves to fixing them,” he said.
According to him, the NCS needs to coordinate its operations better, as effectively implementing good policies is dependent on consistency, discipline and constant capacity building.
“We have technology that works brilliantly in one location, and this same technology sits unused in some other places.
“We have officers with innovative ideas who don’t have channels to share them.
“We have institutional knowledge that works out the door when experienced officers retire because we never documented what they knew.
“These gaps, being a good customs administrator and being a great one , and if we are honest with ourselves, that is where we are right now.
“Somewhere between what you can call a good customs administration, and a great one, trying to figure out how we can close the distance,” he said.
Adeniyi said the conference was designed to help the service apply the principles that guided the successful organisation of the C-PACT conference, including good coordination, clear communication, unified messaging and disciplined execution, in its daily operations.
According to him, discussions at the two-day CGC conference will focus on addressing gaps in institutional cohesion, building the capacity of customs personnel to be competent in implementing innovations in customs operations.
This is in line with extant WCO standards, implementing policies, and managing modernisation tools and instruments.
Adeniyi expressed concern that some reforms initiated by past leaders were treated as personal projects and abandoned once they left office, rather than upheld as institutional commitments.
The NCS boss urged the participants to contribute practical solutions to identified challenges and commit to addressing them.
He described the responsibilities of the NCS as significant that could be difficult to fulfil if the service operated at half its potential due to internal coordination problems and capacity gaps.
Adeniyi said that in spite of the challenges within the service, it had made real progress in its duties, particularly in meeting and even exceeding its revenue targets in recent years, including its 2025 target.
