The Nigeria Customs Service is engaging with West Africa Security Project (WASP) to train officers on security awareness for effective trade facilitation and effective border security.

The Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC) Wale Adeniyi, made this known while adressing delegates during a meeting in Abuja.

He described the project as a medium that would benefit officers of the service in the area of curbing smuggling and illegal trafficking of substances.

Adeniyi also described the initiative as a great opportunity for officers to perform their duties.

The comptroller-general said some of the benefits of the programme included cargo profiling, small arms and light weapon handling.

He added that another benefit was the global shield programmes which deals with chemicals and radioactive elements.

“There is an existing project managed by the World Bank that looks at the Lagos-Abidjan corridor whose aim is to promote trade facilition.

“Bringing in this new project that looks at the security aspect will boost our performances and potent a lot of opportunities for us.”

“We will be able to account for 60 per cent of the (Gross Domestic Product (GDP) if we are able to cooperate effectively.

“This project requires the cooperation and collaboration of all the Customs administrations involved,”he said.

The customs boss further said that the programme also entailed field officers brainstorming and exchanging ideas.

According to him, it will help officers know convergence of smuggling route to minimise smuggling and trafficking activities.

Mr Terry Wall, Project, and Manager of West Africa Security Project (WASP), said, some of the benefits of the programme would include identification of high risk cargo, provision of training of national Customs Enforcement Network (nCEN).

Others according to him are delivery of refresher training in the use of Customs Enforcement Network (CEN), joint activity to deliver geospatial intelligence and high level end-of-project evaluation with the donor.