SEREC Opposes Customs Officers Tenure Extension, Says 2007–2009 Recruitment Generation Ready for Leadership
Nigeria Customs Officers
By DAPO OLAWUNI
The Sea Empowerment and Research Centre (SEREC) has opposed calls for an extension of the tenure of senior officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), arguing that officers recruited between 2007 and 2009 have accumulated sufficient years of service to be assessed for senior management positions.
The centre maintained that the achievements of the Service were products of the collective efforts of its workforce and should not be used to justify retaining senior officers on the assumption that younger officers lack the experience to succeed them.
In an official policy statement titled “The Successors Are Already in the System: Why Nigeria Customs Must Trust Its Next Generation,” SEREC urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Nigeria Customs Service Board and relevant authorities to adopt a transparent, lawful and merit-based approach to leadership succession.
The statement, signed by SEREC Director-General, Francis Aniezechukwu, said officers recruited in and around 2007–2009 had accumulated approximately 17 to 19 years of service as of October 2026, depending on their actual appointment dates.
According to the centre, these officers have spent nearly two decades working in areas such as revenue collection, anti-smuggling operations, customs valuation, tariff classification, cargo examination, trade facilitation and border enforcement.
SEREC argued that the relevant question was no longer whether the officers joined the Service later than their seniors, but whether they met the requirements for the positions they might be appointed to occupy.
It called for their readiness to be determined through personnel records, professional training histories, operational performance and individual leadership assessments, rather than broad assumptions about their experience.
“The achievements of the Nigeria Customs Service are not produced by senior management alone,” the centre stated, explaining that the Service’s results depended on the operational work, professional competence, intelligence, enforcement activities and administrative contributions of officers at different levels.
It noted that when Customs records seizures, recovers revenue, intercepts prohibited goods, improves compliance or facilitates international trade, the outcomes depend on personnel who assess declarations, examine cargo, gather intelligence, conduct enforcement operations, process documentation, manage risk and implement policies across commands.
While acknowledging the importance of senior management in providing direction and oversight, SEREC said the operational machinery of the Service depended on the contributions of personnel throughout the organisation.
It therefore questioned the basis for relying on the Service’s collective achievements to support the retention of senior officers while simultaneously portraying the next generation as insufficiently prepared to lead.
The centre, however, clarified that it was not attributing every achievement of the Service to the 2007–2009 recruitment generation without supporting evidence. Rather, it insisted that the contributions and competence of officers from the period should be properly recognised and assessed.
“An institution cannot depend on the collective competence of its workforce to deliver results and then presume that the same workforce is incapable of developing its future leaders,” the statement said.
To demonstrate the scale of responsibilities handled by the Customs workforce, SEREC cited the Service’s reported performance figures for the first half of 2024, when the NCS recorded 2,442 seizures with a Duty Paid Value of approximately ₦25.52 billion.
The centre also cited a reported 203 per cent increase in the Duty Paid Value of seizures compared with the corresponding period in 2023, alongside approximately ₦1.34 billion generated through e-auctions and about ₦4.37 billion collected through the 90-day duty-payment window for uncustomed vehicles.
SEREC further noted that the Service reportedly generated approximately ₦6.105 trillion in revenue in 2024, exceeding its annual revenue target by 20.2 per cent.
It said the figures illustrated the operational competence, intelligence, coordination, professional judgment and administrative effort required across the Service, stressing that such institutional results should not be attributed exclusively to senior management.
The centre also referenced the promotion of 4,291 senior officers in December 2024 and another 3,312 senior officers in September 2025 as evidence of the scale of the Service’s career-progression and personnel-development processes.
It called for a clear assessment of how many officers from the 2007–2009 generation had acquired the qualifications, command experience and operational records required for senior management appointments.
“The evidence must determine readiness; seniority alone cannot settle the question,” SEREC stated.
On professional competence, the centre said contemporary Customs administration required expertise in international trade, customs valuation, risk management, digitalisation, intelligence, post-clearance audit, enforcement and trade facilitation.
It pointed to the relevance of international standards and capacity-building programmes developed by the World Customs Organization, as well as the World Trade Organization’s framework for trade facilitation and related obligations.
SEREC urged the NCS to conduct a transparent review of the educational qualifications, professional courses, domestic and international training, awards, commendations and command experience of officers in the 2007–2009 recruitment generation.
It also called for the documentation of their individual and team contributions to major seizures, revenue recovery, intelligence-led operations and improvements in Customs administration.
According to the centre, such an assessment would provide an evidence-based foundation for determining which officers were ready for promotion and senior management appointments.
It stressed that its position was not that every younger officer was better qualified than every senior officer, but that no generation should be declared unqualified without a fair and objective assessment.
The centre also acknowledged the value of the experience possessed by outgoing senior officers, saying their knowledge should be preserved through mentoring, documentation, formal handovers and structured knowledge transfer.
However, it warned against allowing the need to preserve experience to become a reason for postponing succession indefinitely.
SEREC argued that retirement was a predictable feature of public administration and that the Customs Service should prepare for it through systematic succession planning instead of treating leadership transitions as unexpected institutional crises.
It maintained that any extension of tenure must comply with applicable laws and public-service rules and be supported by a clearly defined institutional need.
A general claim that younger officers lacked experience, it said, was insufficient without identifying the specific competency gaps involved and explaining why they could not be addressed through training, mentoring or an orderly transition.
Where eligible officers had demonstrated the required competence, SEREC said, they should receive fair consideration for advancement.
The centre consequently recommended an assessment of officers eligible for senior management appointments, the publication of anonymised statistics on their qualifications, training and professional experience, and the recognition of documented operational achievements, commendations and international training.
It also called for structured knowledge transfer from outgoing management and the development of clear succession plans, alongside objective justification for any exceptional extension of tenure.
In its concluding position, SEREC urged the authorities to recognise the value of experience without allowing seniority to become an obstacle to institutional renewal.
It said officers who had helped build and operate the Customs system should be given a fair opportunity to demonstrate their readiness to lead it.
“The 2007–2009 generation should not be promoted merely because its time has come. Equally, it should not be denied advancement simply because its predecessors arrived earlier,” the statement said.
SEREC maintained that decisions on succession should be based on competence, integrity, performance and the requirements of the office, adding that a strong institution was one that had prepared competent successors to continue its mission after senior officers departed.
“The future of the Nigeria Customs Service must be secured through planned succession, professional development and merit—not through an indefinite extension of the past,” the centre stated.
