The Regional Trade Facilitation Committee of the Economic Community of West African States has commended the Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi, for embracing innovation with the introduction of the Unified Customs Management System, also known as B’Odogwu.
This was contained in a statement on Tuesday by the Public Relations Officer of the Ports & Terminal Multiservice Limited Command of the NCS, Abdullahi Abubakar.
According to the statement, the Director of Trade at ECOWAS, Kolawole Sofola, stated this during a visit of the RTFC to the PTML Command, which served as the pilot area for the B’Odogwu implementation.
Sofola lauded Adeniyi and the command for the great achievements in trade facilitation and revenue collection recorded within the period the platform was deployed.
The ECOWAS director who led the team to learn about the activities of the command and get deeper insight into recent NCS activities added that “Nigeria is making gains with the deployment of modern innovations.”
According to Sofola, the NCS is doing a great job in enabling economic growth through trade facilitation and suppression of smuggling.
He also commended the Customs Area Controller in charge of the PTML, Comptroller Tenny Daniyan, for deploying technology to achieve greater productivity and revenue increase.
“On behalf of the President of the ECOWAS Commission, as well as the Commissioner responsible for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, I congratulate Comptroller Daniyan and his management team for the great work that they are doing, not only in generating revenue but also in stopping smuggling activities and promoting trade facilitation. We came here to learn as a regional trade facilitation committee, consisting of all ECOWAS member states, and we are very glad to have noted a very good practice in Nigeria. What Nigeria has been doing is evolving with the times. They have improved from one system to another system to finally move to this current system, which is homegrown. This command and, in general, the NCS are doing well in promoting economic growth,” he said.
Daniyan told the committee that since the inception of the Unified Customs Management System, B’Odogwu, in November 2025, the Command has collected over N230bn using the platform.
He told the committee that the B’Odogwu project was initially launched in a pilot phase at PTML Command, and because of the success story, the management of the NCS rolled out the project in 34 commands across the country.
He noted that the B’Odogwu platform is unique in the sense that “it is a home-grown application which was developed by the NCS officers in conjunction with the Trade Modernisation Project”.
The controller said the command now operates a two-hour cargo clearance.
He said this can only be possible with a compliant roll-on/roll-off terminal, and the clearance time will still reduce as the command keeps improving on its operations.
He stated that under the guidance and encouragement of the CGC, there has always been constant sensitisation, training and capacity building, “not only for officers but for all stakeholders like bankers, terminal operators, and everyone that is involved in the use of the project.”
Daniyan explained that the platform has replaced the Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System 2 that was used.
“As you know, with any new thing, there is a challenge, especially with technology. We are going to have glitches and issues, but the uniqueness of this platform is that it is a home-grown application. We give kudos to our CGC,” Daniyan said.
Also speaking at the meeting, the B’Odogwu Project Manager, Assistant Comptroller Oyindamola Abass Oladepo, while delivering a presentation on the application, gave the history of how the project was initiated. He said N5.6 bn was realised from the platform just in a day.
