Customs Zonal Games End, As CGC Tasks Officers to Practice Lessons learned

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Customs Zonal Games End, As CGC Tasks Officers to Practice Lessons learned

By Jerry Aguigbo

The Nigeria Customs Service Western Zone inter command games 2026 , held at the NCS training College Ikeja, with the Theme; “Fit Serve, United to Lead,” came to an end on Saturday, 5th September 2026. The week long competition was brought to a deserved end with a very colourful closing ceremony which attracted personalities to the Customs College pitch, with the Comptroller General of Customs, CGC Bashir Adewale Adeniyi personally gracing the occasion. All Customs Commands in Zone ‘A’ also brought on their best in terms of regalia and colourful attires turning up the razzmatazz and charm of the zonal competition with a match past and Power bike parade.

The CGC while drawing the blinds on the event congratulated the zone for their ingenuity which made the event very colorful and interesting. He congratulated the Zonal Coordinator, ACG Babandede and his team for the wonderful job they did.

“What a very colourful display that we have seen this evening. And the starting point for me would be to congratulate the Zonal Coordinator, Zone A, ACG Babandede, and all members of his team, especially the Chairman Organising Committee for this game, Chidi, for putting up such a wonderful display of artistry. Coming into the college this evening, from the number of vehicles that we saw outside, from the number of guests that we saw inside the college, there is no doubt about the fact that this game has attracted a lot of attention in Lagos.

So I congratulate you all. The attraction of the attention is such that not only vehicles came around, we also saw a lot of power bikes. And I was whispering to my CSO that if all these power bikes have paid the correct customs duty when they entered Nigeria, maybe our revenue target will have been half met.

I think we now need to pay more attention to power bikes, so that each time they have programmes, we just send enforcement officers there, and we’ll be able to collect correct duty. But I’m not too sure which kind of bikers that we have today. They are the bikers who can only raise dusts in training college.” He joked.

He challenged the Bikers to do what a woman Customs officer did less than a year ago.

“So if bikers are listening to me, let them just try Lagos to Dakar. They do not need to get to Brussels.

And then we can come back here and waive the custom duty on all their bikes. But I really want to thank you all for the colourful display that you have given to us. When we came into office, we all were unanimous about the fact that we make three things the pillars of our programmes.

Consolidation, collaboration, and innovation. And I think I’ve seen those three pillars displayed very, very well this evening. Let me talk about the fact that we have our sister agencies who have joined us to celebrate the best of sporting excellence in the zone.

I want to say a very big thank you to all of you. I saw immigration, I saw NDLEA, I saw representatives from other agencies. Thank you very much.”

“What you have been doing in the discharge of our responsibility as partners in maintaining national security is what you have extended to us today. We really, really appreciate. How best do we look for innovation? When I entered this college and I saw the amount of preparations and innovations that have been displayed, I was indeed very grateful.

Even the trees inside the college are wearing new looks. And I was saying that perhaps we should start organising these tournaments every month so that the college will be wearing this kind of look. But if you leave that, we can talk about the beautiful parade that you have put up.

Very, very, very spectacular. And I think for me, this is the high point. We can as well forget about the final match and go home.”

Adeniyi praised the innovation in the costume as really very remarkable. according to him, all the commands and the controllers who have brought them all stood out.

“The hero of today is the zonal coordinator of the zone, who is able to put all of you together to bring up this performance. As we are about to witness the final match, I understand, I’m guided that this weather may change, we don’t have more time. Let me talk briefly about the fact that what we have seen today, we need to bring out two essential elements.

CGC Adeniyi went down memory lane as he participated in the zonal games as a young officer.
“I know that as a young officer, I participated in this same competition in Kano. I participated in this same competition, even here in this college, where we brought everybody in the zone.

Then we went on to have the inter-zonal competitions, and we have had it in Kano, we have had it in Port Harcourt, we’ve had it in Markurdi. That should be our next objective. After we challenged all the zones to organise this, we now have to bring all the zones together into a zonal competition.

The second part of this is equally important. It has to be the state of infrastructure for sports. I was in Kano last weekend, about this time last weekend, and I saw that we are building an ultra-modern sporting facility in one of our barracks in Kano.

This is something that we should extend to all the zones so that they will have the opportunity to expose their officers to competitions like this. I am ashamed to admit to the fact that when I trained here over 30 years ago, the sporting facilities that we have here wasn’t anything… it was just about the same stage that it was over 30 years ago. This is not a good commentary about a service that has contributed to sports development in Nigeria.” He lamented.

Furthermore, he said, “we maintain one of the best teams in volleyball. Currently, Customs is the defending champion for the male volleyball in the premiership. We are the defending champion in the female volleyball in the championship.

We have a very good team doing well in basketball. We are the defending champion in the Maritime Football Cup. We have many athletes both in the national team for athletics.

Very recently, two of our officers, two of our players, secured the Olympic tickets for beach volleyball. And in so many other competitions, we have shown that Customs is not a pushover. And of course, the Comptroller General of Customs is also the President of the National Wrestling Federation Board.

If we have this kind of very, very serious visibility in sports development, our infrastructure in our number one training command should be better than this. And I want to take this as a challenge. We are trying to build a new facility elsewhere, outside of this place.

This is why, perhaps, it might not be very wise for us to concentrate those kind of resources here. But I want to assure all of us that a very, very fitting sports facility would be part of the new location of our training college in the IPeru local state. We might start something here, which might just be something temporary, to ensure that our new set of recruits that will be coming here would have a place to express their talents.”

The Comptroller General called on officers not to forget the lessons learned at the competition outside prizes won during the tournament.

“The second issue I would like to mention is the fact that after the final match, after the last whistle is blown on this, we are going to present prizes, medals, like has been said. But we must not forget the lessons that sports teach us. The lessons of discipline.

Every sporting event, every competition requires discipline. As customs officers, in our private life, in our operations, we need discipline. Every sports competition also requires teamwork.

As you are going to see, while we have the final match, and in all the other matches that we have seen, you need discipline. Whether you are working in pairs, whether you are working as a group, we need to cultivate that element of team spirit, teamwork. We must always be our brother’s keeper in everything that we do.

Of course, we know that for you to triumph in any sporting event, you need strategy. You need an enabling strategy. When you start the match, you must see the coaches and the officials talking to their players about the tactics that they need to adopt when the match starts.

It is also the same thing that we need to carry on into our work. Without that overarching discipline that we are going to take into a patrol operation, that patrol will fail. Without an overarching strategy that we want to deploy into revenue generation, it will fail if there is no strategy.

So I want to enjoin us all the virtues of discipline, teamwork, and strategy are very important takeaways from a competition like this. Finally, let me congratulate all the winners. Let me also enjoin all the losers to try their best next time.”

The finals of the football was brought to an end with Customs Police piping MMIA with a solitary goal to win the football category of the competition.