By Joy Odor Reportcircle News
For two days behind closed doors, Nigeria’s top Customs managers stepped away from ports and paperwork into a strategy room where one message rang clear: the old way of moving goods across Nigeria’s borders is no longer good enough.
On January 22 and 23, 2026, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) wrapped up a high-level leadership and management workshop designed to fast-track trade facilitation reforms, cut bureaucratic drag and reposition Customs as a central engine of economic growth.
The programme, delivered in partnership with Reverso Business Services Limited, marked another decisive push in the Service’s ongoing digital and institutional overhaul.
The workshop was not routine training. It was a recalibration.
Senior officers interrogated how global trade is changing, how technology is reshaping border management, and how modern Customs administrations are moving from gatekeepers to growth enablers.
Discussions were blunt, technical and forward-looking, focused on automation, operational efficiency and deeper collaboration with the private sector.
At the heart of the conversation was leadership.
Under the reform agenda of Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, the Service is attempting to break from legacy systems that slow trade, inflate costs and undermine competitiveness.
The goal, participants were told, is alignment with global best practice without losing sight of Nigeria’s unique economic and security realities.
“Our environment will continue to be very dynamic,” Adeniyi told the officers on the final day. “What will not change is Nigeria’s expectation that Customs must contribute meaningfully to economic prosperity, public health and national security.
When these elements come together, we are better positioned to facilitate trade.”
It was a clear signal that Customs’ mandate is expanding beyond revenue collection into a more strategic role in national development.
Adeniyi challenged officers to internalise higher professional standards, framing the reforms not as external pressure but as a voluntary reset of institutional ambition.
According to him, the Service is deliberately working toward becoming a reference Customs administration—one defined by accountability, responsiveness and measurable performance.
“These are standards we choose to hold ourselves to,” he said. “We want to be a reference organisation, one that delivers on its commitments and supports government efforts to create an environment where the economy can prosper.”
Reverso Business Services’ Founder and Chief Executive, Ayokunnu Ojeniyi, struck an even sharper note, warning that resistance to change is no longer an option in global trade.
“If you don’t take change by the hand, it will seize you by the throat,” he told participants. “The environment is changing, and Customs must continue to manage that change proactively.”
Ojeniyi urged officers to move beyond theory and translate the workshop’s lessons into concrete improvements across commands and formations where delays, inefficiencies and discretionary practices are most visible to traders.
The training fits squarely into the NCS’s broader modernisation drive, which includes end-to-end process automation, stronger stakeholder engagement and strategic partnerships aimed at reducing clearance times and improving the ease of doing business.
For Nigeria’s trading community, the real test will not be the speeches or the seminars, but what happens next at the ports, borders and corridors where policy meets practice.
For now, Customs has made its intent clear: reform is no longer a slogan. It is an operational directive.
