The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Thursday, November 20, 2025, commenced the Comptroller-General of Customs’ Annual Conference in Abuja with a strong charge to senior officers to confront lingering internal lapses undermining the Service’s operational efficiency.
Held at the Congress Hall of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, the conference theme: “Building Future Partnerships: Lessons from the Customs-PACT Conference” was convened to evaluate current performance gaps and chart strategies for institutional strengthening.
Declaring the event open, Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, said the Service must replicate internally the same level of discipline, coordination and strategic clarity that delivered the successful Customs Partnership for African Cooperation in Trade (C-PACT) Summit held in Abuja a day earlier.
“You can’t sustain external credibility without internal integrity,” Adeniyi cautioned. “This is the time to turn the mirror inward, confront uncomfortable truths, and have honest conversations about what is working, what is failing, and what must change.”
The CGC noted that preparations for the C-PACT Summit demonstrated what coordinated teamwork could achieve, citing the 16 consecutive weeks of planning meetings, unified communication with AfCFTA, swift conflict resolution and a shared commitment to avoid failure “with the world watching.”
Adeniyi stressed that the goal of the 2025 CGC Conference is to institutionalize the principles that defined the success of the international summit coordination, unified messaging and disciplined execution by embedding them into the Service’s daily operations.
The two-day programme will feature panel sessions, technical presentations and open discussions designed to encourage robust engagement where “ideas matter more than rank,” he added.
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