How Customs Turned Communication into a Weapon
By Haroon Aremu Abiodun
Dr. Ike Neliaku, President of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), once quipped that in heaven, doctors will envy, lawyers will murmur, engineers will be silent — but communicators will still communicate. Why? Because existence itself is dialogue, and we cannot not communicate. The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has seized this eternal truth, wielding communication not as decoration but as a weapon sharper than revenue graphs or border patrols. In a country where perception often outweighs policy, Customs is proving that words are not echoes but firepower.
If oxygen sustains life, communication sustains power. Customs has not only learned how to breathe it; they have learned how to weaponize it. Their evolving public relations strategy is less about ceremony and more about combat — fighting misinformation with metaphors, disarming rumors with rhythm, and welding trust into shields against disaffection.
At Bayero University, Kano, this philosophy was dramatized in a four-day workshop themed “Beyond Masters of Ceremonies.” Officers were not trained as mere announcers but as architects of perception. Communication was reframed as the bloodstream of governance — if it clots, the entire institution risks collapse.
Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, through Deputy Comptroller-General Timi Bomodi, underscored this urgency: communication, he said, must be the backbone of Customs’ relationship with citizens. His warning was clear — in an era where one viral rumor can collapse trust faster than bullets pierce walls, silence is no longer golden; silence is surrender.
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Professor Abdallah Uba Adamu echoed the same sentiment, likening reputation to glass: once cracked by misinformation, no polishing can restore it. PR strategist Yushau A. Shuaib sharpened the imagery further, portraying misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation not as shadows but as assassins. “This battle,” he declared, “is no longer just about facts — it is about trust.” Customs PR officers, in his framing, are not just messengers; they are sentinels guarding the nation’s credibility.
The workshop itself unfolded like theatre: mock press conferences, simulated crises, narrative battles in real time. Vice-Chancellor Haruna Musa called it “transformative,” but it was more than that — it was a rehearsal for war in the age of information. Abdullahi Maiwada, Chief Superintendent of Customs and national spokesperson, captured its essence: academics gained access to the messy heartbeat of field realities, while officers absorbed the precision of evidence-based communication. In that fusion, theory and practice danced — one providing rhythm, the other fire.
Here lies a lesson other Nigerian institutions often miss. Too many still treat communication as a ribbon cut at events. Customs, instead, has turned it into an arsenal. They understand that perception is not garnish; it is the meal itself. A good policy poorly communicated is a bad policy. A weak policy communicated well can still earn loyalty.
This insight should reshape how government agencies think about security. Guns and gates are no longer enough; tweets, town halls, and transparency are the new arsenal. Customs has embraced the gamble: master the narrative or be mastered by it.
That old saying — “only communicators will survive in heaven” — once sounded like exaggeration. But in Kano, it rang prophetic. Long after weapons rust, after uniforms fade, after titles vanish, dialogue endures. The Nigeria Customs Service has not just believed this; they have institutionalized it. They are no longer mere masters of ceremonies. They are masters of perception. And in a fragile democracy where silence is mistaken for guilt, this mastery may be the thin line between trust and turmoil, between unity and fracture, between collapse and continuity.
Haroon Aremu Abiodun is an Associate Member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations. [email protected]
