KEY POINTS

• Customs reduces the number of checkpoints to improve operational efficiency and border efficiency.
• Joint Border Patrol Team disintegrated in order to replace old, technology driven enforcement strategies.
• The 2025 strategy of NCS promises to bolster trade compliance and strengthen border security.

As part of the 2025 enforcement strategy, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) yesterday said it is reducing checkpoints across the country, as it seeks to modernise operations, facilitate trade and enhance border security.

The initiative was approved by Comptroller General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, to boost efficiency through intelligence driven operations and strategic risk management.

Adeniyi said that this decision reflected the Service’s commitment to applying innovative, intelligence driven approaches to enhance effective border enforcement and anti-smuggling operations.

End of Joint Border Patrol significates operational shift

Also, the NCS has dissolved a major outfit set up to enforce the partial border closure policy of Nigeria, which was the Mid Joint Border Patrol Team, otherwise known as Ex-Swift Response 2019.

The NCS decision to dissolve Markopolo comes after consultations with the ONSA and marks a change of gear for the agency in terms of projecting border enforcement using advanced technologies and geospatial tools.

Acknowledging the important role partner agencies under JBPT played, Adeniyi however assured stakeholders that the changes would not undermine the security of the boarder or inhibit trade facilitation.

“This suggests great progress made in modernizing customs operations, trade compliance as well as national security,” he added.

NCS’s 2025 strategy projects streamlining of processes, adoption of technology and collaborative partnerships to attain the dual, of facilitating legitimate trade and securing Nigeria’s borders.