CGC Bashir Adewale Adeniyi Receives International Excellence Award in Greece

The Nigeria Customs Service has earned international acclaim for its communication strategy, with Comptroller-General Bashir

Adewale Adeniyi receiving a Special Award of Excellence at the 2026 IPRA Golden World Awards in Athens, Greece.

The award recognises the Service’s commitment to transparent communication, stakeholder engagement, and ethical public relations. These efforts supported the public understanding of ongoing reforms to modernize Customs operations, ease trade, and boost institutional transparency.

Accepting the honour, CGC Adeniyi described it as international validation of the Nigeria Customs Service’s reform efforts. He emphasized that the recognition will drive the Service to deepen its adoption of AI and other emerging technologies to improve public communication and stakeholder engagement.

“We have started using AI tools in our public communication, and we view this recognition as an invitation to do more. By 2027, we hope the NCS and more Nigerian agencies will feature prominently among global award recipients,” he said.

According to Adeniyi, effective communication drives successful government reforms by helping citizens and stakeholders understand their goals, challenges, and benefits.

He added that the NCS reform agenda directly supports President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic goals: improving Nigeria’s trade competitiveness, facilitating exports, and deepening integration into the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

He further celebrated Nigeria’s win at the IPRA Grand Prix, describing the achievement as an indication of the country’s growing participation in international strategic communication. The Grand Prix was awarded to Image Merchants Promotion Limited (IMPR), publishers of PRNigeria and Economic Confidential, for its campaign, AI for Crisis Communication: From Study to Strategy.

The campaign grew out of a research project led by IMPR’s Chief Executive Officer, Yushau Shuaib, in collaboration with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Centre for Crisis Communication. The project examined the growing challenges of AI-driven misinformation, deepfakes and digital information disorder and translated its findings into a strategic communication initiative.

 

Earlier in her welcome remarks, the President of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), Esther Cobbah, stated that the return to Athens was particularly significant because the city was where the association developed its Code of Conduct for public relations practice 60 years ago, noting that the 2026 gathering provided an opportunity to celebrate individuals, agencies and organisations that had applied the principles of ethical communication while delivering excellence in their work. “Sixty years ago, in Athens, we built the code of ethics for public relations practice. Today, we have come back to Athens to see how we have deployed those ethics in our work.”