REPORTER’S DIARY: Adeniyi and Nigeria Customs in Global Eyes
By Abdulsalam Mahmud,
For a long time, hearing “Nigeria Customs Service” probably brought one image to mind: the border. Customs officers checking vehicles, inspecting cargo and making seizures. That was the familiar picture.
But Customs has changed. Or perhaps the world around Customs has changed so much that the old picture is no longer enough.
Today, a consignment can pass through several countries before reaching Nigeria. Criminal networks also operate across borders, using technology, complex routes and sometimes legitimate businesses to move illicit goods.
A Customs administration that wants to stay ahead cannot therefore afford to look only at what happens at its own borders. This is where the Nigeria Customs under Comptroller-General Bashir Adewale Adeniyi appears to be taking a different path.
In the past few months, Adeniyi has been at meetings and forums in Brussels, London, Abu Dhabi and Kuala Lumpur, discussing issues that go beyond the immediate business of Nigerian Customs. Intelligence sharing, trade data, technology, enforcement, border security and cooperation with foreign customs administrations have all featured prominently.
What caught my attention is not simply the number of countries visited or meetings attended. It is the nature of the conversations Nigeria is now part of.
On March 23, 2026, for instance, Adeniyi addressed the opening of the 46th Session of the World Customs Organisation Enforcement Committee in Brussels. The occasion was significant because, for the first time in the committee’s 43-year history, its opening session was jointly addressed by the WCO Secretary-General, Ian Saunders, and the Chairperson of the WCO Council.
Adeniyi used the occasion to make a point that goes to the heart of modern customs enforcement. “Customs enforcement today is no longer about isolated seizures; it is about protecting the integrity of global trade,” he said.
There is something important about that statement. Customs enforcement is no longer just about stopping a smuggler at a border post. It is also about knowing where suspicious goods are coming from, where they are going, who is behind them and which other agencies or countries may have information that can help stop them.
That explains why the WCO Enforcement Committee is having to rethink its own role. Its terms of reference were last revised in 2009, but the world of trade and transnational crime has changed considerably since then. Issues such as intelligence sharing, trade-based money laundering, supply-chain vulnerabilities and new detection technologies now sit much closer to the centre of customs enforcement.
Nigeria brought its own experience to that conversation. With its huge trading population, extensive land borders, seaports, airports and a long history of smuggling challenges, the country has plenty of lessons to share. It also has plenty to learn.
From Brussels, the conversation moved to London.
There, the Nigeria Customs helmsman met with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs under the Nigeria–United Kingdom Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership framework. One issue that stood out was the difference in the trade figures reported by the two countries.
Nigeria recorded about £504 million in imports from the UK in 2024, while UK records put its exports to Nigeria at about £1.7 billion. That is not a small difference. It raises questions about how goods are recorded, valued and tracked as they move between the two countries.
Rather than leaving the matter as a statistical disagreement, the two sides discussed stronger data exchange, including a structured pre-arrival information system. The idea is fairly straightforward: if Customs knows more about a consignment before it arrives, it has a better chance of identifying risks without unnecessarily slowing down legitimate traders.
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There were also discussions on Customs Mutual Administrative Assistance, technical cooperation and digital border management. These may sound like matters reserved for officials sitting around conference tables, but their eventual effect can be felt by businesses and ordinary people who depend on the smooth movement of goods.
Then came Abu Dhabi.
At the 2026 WCO Technology Conference and Exhibition, Nigeria was part of a wider conversation about how technology is changing Customs. The Service showcased aspects of its Trade Modernisation Project, including cloud computing, advanced analytics and the B’Odogwu platform.
For me, this was another interesting part of the story.
Nigeria has often been seen as a country that imports technology and expertise. Here was the Nigeria Customs presenting a homegrown platform and talking about its own experience with digital transformation. That may not mean Nigeria has solved all its customs problems, but it is a different position from simply waiting for solutions to arrive from elsewhere.
Adeniyi also spoke about cooperation with organisations such as INTERPOL, WIPO and the Universal Postal Union. His argument was that Customs cannot effectively fight modern cross-border crimes if each institution works inside its own little corner.
The same thinking was evident in the discussion with the Royal Malaysian Customs Department. Nigeria’s trade with Malaysia has grown significantly, with imports rising from ₦159.9 billion in 2020 to ₦716 billion in 2024. Cumulative trade between both countries was estimated at ₦1.82 trillion.
Those figures make cooperation more than a diplomatic courtesy. When trade grows, the systems used to monitor that trade must grow with it.
Both countries therefore discussed deeper customs cooperation, including a possible Mutual Recognition Agreement, intelligence sharing, illicit trade and integrated border management. Malaysia shared aspects of its border control experience, while Nigeria presented its Authorised Economic Operator programme and other trade facilitation reforms.
There is a lesson in all of this.
A Customs administration cannot operate successfully in isolation when the people involved in smuggling, money laundering, trafficking and other forms of cross-border crime are themselves not operating in isolation. The same applies to legitimate traders. Their businesses cross borders, and the institutions regulating them must be able to communicate across those borders.
That appears to be the direction Adeniyi is pushing the Nigeria Customs Service.
His role as Chairperson of the WCO Council gives Nigeria an unusual opportunity to influence conversations at the heart of global customs affairs. But the real test will not be the photographs from Brussels, London, Abu Dhabi or Kuala Lumpur.
It will be what comes out of those meetings.
Will information move faster between customs administrations? Will suspicious consignments become easier to track? Will legitimate traders face fewer unnecessary delays? Will technology improve enforcement rather than simply provide another platform to advertise?
Those are the questions that will ultimately determine whether this global engagement makes a difference at home.
For now, however, something has clearly changed in the way Nigeria Customs presents itself to the world. The Service is not only talking about what happens at Nigeria’s borders. It is increasingly participating in conversations about what happens beyond them.
And perhaps that is the most interesting part of Adeniyi’s Customs story.
The border is still there. The seizures still matter. Revenue collection still matters. But the world that Customs must understand has become much bigger than the border post.
Nigeria Customs appears to be looking beyond it.
Mahmud, Deputy Editor of PRNigeria, wrote in via: [email protected].
