On paper, the Nigerian Customs Service ,NCS, is built around a clear architecture of mandates: it is the state’s fiscal gatekeeper tasked with generating revenue through duties and levies; its security arm is charged with suppressing smuggling, intercepting contraband like arms and drugs, and patrolling land, sea, and air borders; its trade function seeks to simplify procedures, license agents, and facilitate legitimate commerce; while its economic role demands accurate data for national planning and strict enforcement of tariffs and international trade agreements. Layered on this are mandates of collaboration with other agencies, protection of local industry from unfair trade, inspection of cargo and baggage, regulation of vessels and aircraft, and the deployment of technology to secure entry points. Taken together, those mandates position Customs not just as a tax collector but as a front-line institution in economic stability, national security, and trade integrity — a body whose effectiveness at the borders determines how much revenue reaches the federation account, how safe communities are from illicit goods, and how competitive local businesses can be in a global market.
To justify their appointments , every Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service tends to arrive with a familiar playbook of achievements: capacity building tops the list, showcased through local and international training programs meant to professionalize the officer corps; infrastructure development follows, highlighted by housing estates for staff, new buses, and renovated clinics that signal welfare priorities; salary increases are touted as morale boosters and anti-corruption measures; revenue generation figures are rolled out as proof of fiscal competence, often emphasizing record collections; and ICT deployment is presented as the hallmark of modernization, with consolidated systems promised to block leakages and speed up trade. Together, these five claims form the standard scorecard of reform — a ritual of metrics and projects that every administration points to as evidence of progress, even as public scrutiny returns to the same enduring questions of efficiency, transparency, and culture at the ports and borders.
Under Comptroller-General Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, the Nigeria Customs Service has framed its tenure around a narrative of record-setting performance and institutional modernization: it touts a revenue haul of ₦4.49 trillion between June 2023 and May 2024 — a 74% jump — and a full-year 2024 collection of ₦6.1 trillion, 22% above target despite lower import volumes; it points to the rollout of the indigenous “B’Odogwu” clearance platform, electronic tracking for transit containers, and data analytics as proof of a digital turn that boosts efficiency and transparency; it cites strengthened anti-smuggling operations, major weapons and contraband seizures, and data-driven surveillance that broke syndicates as evidence of tighter border security; it highlights trade facilitation gains through the Authorized Economic Operator program, green-lane treatments, and rising agricultural and solid mineral exports; it emphasizes staff welfare with prompt allowances, insurance coverage, and over 1,800 officers trained in AI and data analytics; and it crowns these claims with international validation — Adeniyi’s 2025 election as Chairperson of the World Customs Organisation Council, the first Nigerian to lead the 186-member body. Collectively, the Service presents these as a break from the past: a tech-enabled, revenue-efficient, globally respected Customs administration.
Yet for all the familiar claims — capacity building programs, new housing estates and buses, salary hikes, record revenue figures, and ICT rollouts — a stubborn gap persists between the scorecards waved at press briefings and the reality at Nigeria’s ports and borders.
Under Basiru Wale Adeniyi , the first Comptroller-General of Customs from the Southern Nigeria since its creation , nothing has changed as such . Like a snake gliding across a rock, Wale Adeniyi has passed over the Nigerian Customs Service without leaving with a miserable trace. Despite the fanfare of reform and the optics of a new broom, the Service under his watch remains shackled to its old trademarks: corruption that oils every clearance, nepotism that decides who rises and who rots, and inefficiency that turns ports into parking lots, proving that in Customs, the name on the door changes but the culture at the gate endures.
Corruption still bleeds the system through revenue leakages, collusion between officers and smugglers, and containers that vanish from terminals only to reappear in markets, while auctioneers themselves are caught moving electronics under the Service’s watch. Inefficiency remains entrenched in slow clearance, excessive documentation, and officers who waylay vehicles on highways to confiscate goods or demand bribes, turning trade facilitation into a gauntlet. Nepotism and marginalization continue to define personnel management, with lopsided recruitment and promotions that favor one region and a culture of secrecy around postings that erodes transparency. The mandates look sound on paper and the Comptroller-General’s achievements read well in reports, but until smuggled containers stop disappearing, until due process replaces discretion at checkpoints, and until recruitment is based on merit not geography, the Customs Service will keep celebrating reforms while the same old trademarks — corruption, inefficiency, and nepotism — define its gate.
The PRO’s Dilemma: Why Customs’ Old Trademarks Outlive Its Reform Scripts
His inability to make the difference may not be farfetched as he was not a core staff per se .Drawing on his PRO background, the real challenge is that Customs’ old ways of doing things continue to hold firm despite constant reform efforts. For nearly 20 years, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi was the face and voice of the Nigeria Customs Service. As National Public Relations Officer from June 2003 to January 2017, and in communication-related roles for much of his career, his job was to manage perception: explain seizures, defend policies, and frame the Service’s image amid recurring scandals over revenue leakages, smuggling, and opaque personnel practices. He moved to core operational roles only in 2017 — first as Deputy Commandant of the Command and Staff College, then as Controller of MMIA Command in 2019 — before becoming Comptroller-General in 2023.
That trajectory matters when assessing reform. Critics argue that spending the bulk of a career managing the Service’s public image can create a different skill set than the one needed to dismantle entrenched networks of corruption, inefficiency, and nepotism. In Customs’ case, the old trademarks have so far outlived every reform script, and the burden of proof now sits with results at the ports, not press releases
However , Wale’s inadequacies is helped by his skillful current head of Public Affairs who has built a tight, modern messaging operation that enables him to enjoy friendly media relations . He runs a dedicated WhatsApp platform that pushes press releases straight to reporters and media houses in real time — a digital newsroom that links headquarters, area commands, and journalists registered as “Media Friends of the Nigerian Customs Service.” The system ensures the Service’s version of events lands first, everywhere, every time. The mandates are clear and the new performance metrics are loud — ₦6.1 trillion revenue, B’Odogwu platform, WCO chairmanship.
Yet beyond the press releases, questions persist about how the Service manages scrutiny: seized vehicles remain a fixture at command yards, and critics point to the opaque way such assets are later disposed of as a lingering test of transparency for an agency trying to change its image.
Critics and some industry insiders allege that seized vehicles have been distributed to influential journalists to soften coverage of the Service — a claim the Customs has not publicly addressed. The opaque disposal of seized assets remains one of the transparency gaps watchdog groups consistently flag; the street-level realities of disappearing containers, checkpoint extortion, and secrecy around postings remain a source of concerns . The gap raises a hard question for any institution: does mastery of narrative translate into mastery of the system that produces the narratives?
The Nigeria Customs Service’s ₦6.1 trillion haul for 2024 is being celebrated as proof of reform under Comptroller-General Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, but the numbers collapse under basic economic context. Customs duties are assessed on import value converted to naira, and the official exchange rate moved from around ₦460/inJune2023toover₦1,500/ by mid-2024. That means the same container that attracted ₦4.6 million in duty in 2023 would attract ₦15 million in 2024 without any change in volume, commodity, or enforcement. The Service itself reported lower import volumes for the year, confirming that it collected more money while processing fewer goods. Compounding this are government rate reviews, new levies on vehicles, and a widened excisable goods list — each a policy tweak that automatically inflates collections. With headline inflation above 30% through 2024, the nominal value of all imports rose, so duties pegged to value climbed by default. In real terms, ₦6.1 trillion in 2024 buys roughly what ₦3.8 trillion bought in 2022.What hasn’t changed is the structure that produces revenue. Containers still exit ports without full examination, valuation fraud and under-declaration persist through the same discretionary windows that existed in NICIS II, and seizure press releases touting billions in contraband mask a seizure-to-trade ratio that remains flat. If operational efficiency truly drove the 74% jump, clearance time at Apapa and Tin Can would have collapsed. Yet truckers and agents still report 14 to 21 day dwell times, the same bottlenecks that have defined the last decade. B’Odogwu may have digitized the paperwork, but it hasn’t dismantled the human choke points that create delays, breed extortion, and keep legitimate trade expensive.
Revenue is the easiest metric to inflate with fiscal policy and macro shocks, and it photographs well on the Service’s WhatsApp press platform and plays well in WCO circles. But it is a lagging, inflation-prone indicator of performance. The real test is trade volume growth, clearance time, cost of compliance, and leakage reduction. Until the Service publishes those numbers alongside naira figures — and adjusts collections for exchange rate and inflation — the celebrated record will remain a nominal triumph sitting on top of the same old weaknesses: corruption that bleeds value, inefficiency that strangles trade, and a culture where the script changes faster than the system.
Though Wale is believed to be a honest officer by his records in this agency but is honesty the same as capability? A case in Owema town, Ondo State, strips the Service’s reform narrative down to its rawest form: a Customs officer allegedly took ₦100,000 in cash to release a Tokunbo car driver flagged for a ₦2 million underpayment — a deal stopped only because the incident was reported to the National PRO, after which the Ondo/Ekiti Comptroller fished out the officer and returned the bribe. Few victims are that lucky. Further checks show why the highways have become hunting grounds: officers on roadblocks understand the underpayment game at the ports and borders, where valuation fraud is routine, and they know Tokunbo vehicles are the easiest targets. Drivers moving those cars and the officers who stop them already speak the same language of settlement, no argument needed, because both sides feed off a system where under-declared duty at entry becomes extortion rent on the road. For all the talk of B’Odogwu, record trillions, and digital tracking, this is the economy that still runs Customs in practice — one where a driver’s fate depends not on a platform, but on whether someone reports, whether a Comptroller acts, and whether the victim can afford to lose the argument.
The ₦12 Billion Question: Corruption Scandal Under Adeniyi’s Watch Tests Customs’ Reform Claims
In his first year as Comptroller-General, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi faced intense pressure over revenue shortfalls, but a bigger storm was brewing inside the Nigeria Customs Service: a multi-billion naira corruption scandal that, according to reports, exposed how senior officers allegedly monetized the borders and ports under his watch. The amount involved — roughly ₦12 billion traced to secret accounts of top operatives — cuts against the Service’s public narrative of digital modernization and record collections. The controversy centers on a perceived double standard in how two similarly indicted officers were treated, raising questions about accountability at the very moment the Service was marketing B’Odogwu, AEO programs, and a 74% revenue jump as evidence of a clean break from the past.The fraud was uncovered not by internal audits, but by external sting operations. In October 2023, Department of State Services operatives, posing as importers, allegedly contacted Musa Ibrahim Jalo, then Area Comptroller of Federal Operations Unit Zone B, Kaduna, and offered him a deal. Jalo reportedly demanded ₦20 million, which the DSS paid into an account belonging to his personal assistant, Umaru Tafarki. Both were arrested and handed to the EFCC. Investigators allegedly found about ₦4 billion in accounts linked to Jalo, plus $31,200 and ₦500,000 cash at arrest, and ₦126 million traced to Tafarki. Jalo was subsequently forced into compulsory retirement. Two months later, in December 2023, the EFCC arrested Kayode Kolade, Comptroller of FOU Zone C, Port Harcourt, after allegedly tracing ₦9.5 billion to ₦11 billion to his hidden accounts. He spent Christmas in detention, was released on ₦1 billion administrative bail, and, according to whistleblowers, was handed back to Customs leadership. Unlike Jalo, Kolade was reportedly reinstated to his post, where he later decorated promoted officers — a contrast that fueled internal and public criticism.The list of indicted officers widened beyond the two. EFCC investigators reportedly traced ₦950 million to Nurudeen Musa, Comptroller of Enforcement, Kaduna Zone; ₦120 million to Hamisu Ibrahim, in charge of Operation FOU Zone B; ₦85 million to Madugu Saleh; and ₦84 million to Mohammed Rabiu, patrol head on the Agangaro/Jibia Road. Refunds began trickling in: Jalo ₦250 million, Kolade ₦50 million with a pledge of ₦800 million more, Musa ₦583 million, Ibrahim ₦13 million, Saleh ₦13.5 million, Rabiu ₦15 million, and Tafarki ₦12 million. Sources allege the money represented bribes from smugglers paid directly or through agents into designated accounts, with Zone B — covering borders with Niger Republic — accounting for six of the seven officers named. Despite the sums traced and partial refunds, none of the officers were suspended or prosecuted as of the time of reporting, and repeated requests for comment from NCS and EFCC went unanswered. Added to this was a separate allegation that Comptroller-General Adeniyi approved waivers on over 500 luxury vehicles imported for National Assembly members, intensifying concerns about fiscal discipline and selective enforcement. Taken together, the scandal reframes the celebrated revenue figures: if ₦12 billion could be allegedly siphoned by top enforcement heads while the Service missed targets, the real leakage isn’t just at the ports — it’s in the command structure tasked with policing them.
Nepotism Still Runs Customs From Dikko to Adeniyi
Under Comptroller-General Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, allegations of nepotism have shifted from geography to the inner circle. Critics point to “cabal-based” appointments and a one-year service extension granted to select officers — a move seen as denying qualified seniors like DCG B.U. Nwafor their due — as evidence that proximity now trumps merit. The recruitment pipeline tells the same story: though exams are conducted and slots advertised, nothing has changed on the ground because “who you know” still decides who gets in. Applicants and serving officers describe a system where pass lists are only the first hurdle, and the final nod comes from patrons, not scores. While Adeniyi’s career-insider credentials were supposed to end outside interference, the perception is that the Service simply swapped regional favoritism for cronyism, with key posts and new intakes flowing to loyalists rather than the best candidates.
That perception is corrosive because it follows two tenures that entrenched ethnic mistrust. Hameed Ali, an outsider in military posture, was accused of running the NCS as “a Northern affair,” stacking strategic commands with Northern officers and sidelining seniority in favor of rigid, top-down control, while recruitment under him was criticized as opaque despite formal processes. Before him, Abdullahi Dikko Inde’s 2009-2015 run was branded “ethnic cleansing” after 2015 promotions skewed heavily to the North-West while the South-East was allegedly marginalized, with his Katsina roots cited as the invisible hand in both restructuring and mass recruitment. Across Dikko, Ali, and Adeniyi, the styles differ but the outcome rhymes: Dikko used regional imbalance and mass intakes, Ali enforced Northern dominance with military rigidity, Adeniyi leans on selective, career-focused elevation and insider protection. One wielded geography, one wielded ethnicity, one wields loyalty — yet each left a Service where exams are theatre and the real test is access. Until merit, transparent posting rules, and published recruitment and promotion metrics replace the whisper network, every trillion-naira revenue claim will be read against the same ledger: a gate to opportunity guarded by kinship, not competence.
Scanners Dead, Paper Alive: How Bureaucracy and Bribes Keep Nigerian Ports Among the World’s Slowest
The Nigeria Customs Service sells itself as a modern trade facilitator, yet the math of its ports tells a different story: 18 to 21 days to clear cargo, 475% above the global average, with over 70% of that delay blamed on transactional bottlenecks, not ships or weather. Bureaucracy and manual paperwork still dominate despite years of “reform,” because paper creates touchpoints and touchpoints create rents. Corruption and opacity turn each form into a tollgate, while policy instability means guidelines shift without notice, stranding compliant traders and rewarding those who pay to bypass the confusion. The infrastructure deficit makes it worse: not one scanner works at Tin Can, Apapa, Onne, or PTML, so officers default to random physical checks. Customs staff say they even pay out of pocket for labor to unstuff containers marked for inspection, a design flaw that guarantees under-examination and over-negotiation. The result is predictable — perishables rot, factories wait, demurrage piles up, and Nigerian exports lose price advantage before they leave the quay. Billions bleed out annually not from tariffs avoided, but from time wasted.
The inspection regime itself is a case study in engineered shambles. With scanners dead, officers admit they check three or four steel doors out of twenty and sign off the rest, or declare they’ve “examined all” once the right “gift” is discussed — especially for heavy goods like tiles and WCs where full devanning is back-breaking. Cars get better scrutiny only because officers can climb inside containers, not because the system demands it. At land borders, even that theatre vanishes: there is “virtually no examination,” officers relying on the importer’s word. That is why contraband and weapons slip through and why those who can pay top bribes get a green lane without checks. For all the talk of B’Odogwu and digital dashboards, the operating logic hasn’t changed: delay the file, break the process, monetize the fix. Until physical examination is replaced by functional non-intrusive inspection, until procedures are binding and published, and until inter-agency roles stop overlapping, the Service will keep celebrating revenue while the economy pays the price in deadweight costs, lost investment, and a reputation for ports where containers go in and money comes out — but goods don’t.
The Architecture of Sabotage: How Everyone Profits When Customs Fails
The Nigeria Customs Service is mandated to collect revenue and stop smuggling, but the system that grew around it functions like a parallel tax regime where every actor has a cut and every procedure is a tollgate. Undercover work by Fisayo Soyombo and Premium Times showed just how liquid the borders are: for the “right bribe,” a vehicle can move from Abuja to Lagos and back past multiple checkpoints, and virtually any contraband can be smuggled in. That porosity is not accidental. Sources describe a multi-layered kickback chain that runs from checkpoint OCs up to controllers, then to ACGs, DCGs, and onward, with each level taking a share of bribes collected from smugglers on rice, vehicles, and other goods. The scheme is institutional memory, not aberration, and even Customs’ spokesman concedes that “very few officers” compromise — a tacit admission that internal “police-the-police” layers exist because the first line is compromised. When revenue and enforcement are both monetized, optimization becomes the enemy: an efficient, transparent process would starve the very hierarchy that lives off delay.
The rot is distributed because the gains are shared. Clearing agents forge insurance policies, bank drafts, and valuation papers, often in collusion with bankers, then split the proceeds from swindled importers and altered remittances. At examination bays, the collapse is total: with no functional scanners at Tin Can, Apapa, Onne, or PTML, physical inspection is the rule, and it’s pay-to-play. Representatives from NPF, NCS, SSS, NAFDAC, NPA, NDLEA, and NAQS reportedly collect ₦1,000 each “just for looking,” which on a 1,000-container day means ₦1 million per agency in unofficial fees. The “releasing officer” sits as gatekeeper-in-chief: by declaring goods undervalued, he can nullify every prior payment and name a new, inflated figure, then offer to take a “lesser fraction” personally to release the cargo. The risk-classification system feeds the same machine — containers are conveniently put on “red alert” to trigger demurrage and inspection charges, creating leverage for bribes. Gate officials and security personnel sell queue-jumping for ₦20,000 a truck, while shipping lines are accused of manufacturing delays to bill demurrage. Everyone extracts rent from time, and time is what the process is designed to waste.
Optimization is therefore frustrated by design, not by accident. Each stakeholder — smuggler, OC, controller, ACG, releasing officer, agent, banker, shipping line, inter-agency inspector, gate soldier — has a business model that depends on friction. Scanners stay broken because manual devanning creates labor fees and inspection bribes. Policy changes arrive suddenly because unpredictability increases the value of “facilitation.” Documents stay paper-based because opacity allows undervaluation and fake drafts. Fast-track exists for “known manufacturers,” but the definition of “known” is itself a revenue line. Even when equipment is promised, 100% physical examination is ordered instead, guaranteeing delays that can be sold back to importers. As Prof. Itse Sagay noted, nothing changed after 2015: Customs still charges to examine goods by hand. Until the incentive structure is dismantled — by making scanners work, publishing real-time process data, removing discretion from valuation and release, and criminally prosecuting the full chain of beneficiaries — the NCS will keep declaring trillions while the country pays the difference in lost competitiveness, rotting cargo, and a border that opens for bribes but closes for business
