REPORTER’S DIARY: Adeniyi and Nigeria Customs in Global Eyes, by Abdulsalam Mahmud

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…