The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has promised to step up its fight against money laundering, terrorism financing and other illicit cross-border financial flows as Nigeria prepares for its next international assessment of its anti-money laundering framework.
The Service said it would work with other agencies to protect the gains recorded since Nigeria’s removal from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list, and cautioned against any slide back.
Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, was represented by the Deputy Comptroller-General in charge of Finance, Administration and Technical Services, Kikelomo Adeola, at a stocktaking meeting at the NCS headquarters in Abuja on Monday.
The meeting was convened to review Nigeria’s readiness for its next Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) mutual evaluation.
Adeola described the exercise as a key opportunity to review current measures, spot weaknesses and map out strategies to keep Nigeria on track in the fight against financial crimes.
“It is an opportunity to take an honest look at the progress Nigeria has made so far, identify the gaps that presently exist and ensure that Nigeria’s achievements are sustained, because if they are not, it is like one step forward, two steps backwards, and that should not be our portion,” she said.
She praised the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) for its efforts to strengthen the country’s anti-money laundering framework and coordinate preparations for the evaluation.
“I believe Nigeria will never go back to that grey list,” she declared.
Adeola added that Customs cannot confront the problem alone, stressing that close collaboration among government agencies is vital to sustaining progress.
“A tree does not make a forest,” she said.
Also speaking, the NFIU Chief Executive Officer, Hafsat Abubakar, represented by the Chief Operations Officer for Law Enforcement Support and Coordination, Emmanuel Sotande, said the exercise was meant to measure progress, pinpoint remaining weaknesses and strengthen institutional readiness for the assessment.
Sotande said Nigeria’s exit from the FATF grey list was a collective achievement that demands continued cooperation among agencies tasked with preventing and detecting financial crimes.
“Nigeria’s exit from the FATF grey list in October 2025 was a significant achievement that we all achieved by working together,” he said.
He said the priority now is to show that the reforms have produced sustained and effective enforcement.
According to him, Customs holds a strategic place in Nigeria’s anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing and counter-proliferation framework, beyond its core duties of revenue collection, trade facilitation and border enforcement.
He explained that Customs officers have access to import and export documents, cargo records, trade data and border intelligence that can help authorities flag suspicious transactions and expose criminal networks operating across borders.
“Customs plays a vital role in detecting suspicious transactions and activities across borders,” Sotande said.
He added that timely information sharing between the NCS and the NFIU would improve the identification of suspicious networks, the tracing of illicit proceeds and the coordination of enforcement actions.
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