The Nigeria Customs Service has, on Tuesday 13 February, 2024 initiated an engagement with the West Africa Security Project (WASP) to acquaint officers on security awareness for effective trade facilitation and effective border security. Addressing delegates of the West Africa Security Project during a meeting held at Customs Corporate Headquarters, Abuja, Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC) Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR, described the project as a medium that will benefit officers of the Service in the area of curbing smuggling and illegal trafficking of substances. The CGC, who supported the collaboration between the Nigeria Customs Service and WASP, also described the initiative as great chance for officers to perform security duties.
CGC Bashir outlined some of the benefits of the program to encompass; cargo profiling, small arms and light weapon handling, global shield programs which deals with chemicals and radioactive elements, to share resources with stakeholders for synergy, amongst others. According to CGC, “there is an existing project managed by the world bank that looks at the Lagos-Abidjan corridor whose aim is to promote trade facilition. Bringing in this new project that looks at the security aspect will boost our performances and potent a lot of opportunities for us.” He added “We will be able to account for 60% of the GDP if we are able to cooperate effectively. This project requires the cooperation and collaboration of all the Customs administrations involved”.
Furthermore the CGC said that the program also entails field officers brainstorming and exchanging ideas. According to him, it will help officer know convergence of smuggling route to minimize smuggling and trafficking activities. The project manager of West Africa Security Project (WASP) Terry Wall, outlined some of the benefits of the program to include; identification of high risk cargo, provision of training of national Customs Enforcement Network (nCEN), delivery of refresher training in the use of Customs Enforcement Network (CEN), joint activity to deliver GEOSPATIAL intelligence and High Level End-of-Project Evaluation with the donor.
