By George Ozalla
The Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, has received a Special Award of Excellence at the 2026 International Public Relations Association (IPRA) Golden World Awards held in Athens, Greece, on Friday, 25 September 2026.
The award recognises the strategic communication and stakeholder engagement efforts of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), particularly its approach to transparent communication and ethical public relations in explaining and supporting the implementation of its ongoing reforms.
It also recognises the Service’s communication efforts around reforms aimed at modernising Customs operations, improving trade facilitation and strengthening institutional transparency.
Receiving the award, Adeniyi described it as international recognition of the reform efforts of the Nigeria Customs Service and said it would encourage the Service to deepen its use of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), in 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.
Adeniyi said effective communication was critical to the success of government reforms because citizens and other stakeholders needed to understand the objectives of the reforms, the challenges associated with their implementation and the benefits expected from them.
He said the NCS reform agenda was aligned with the economic policies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, particularly efforts to improve Nigeria’s trade competitiveness, facilitate exports and strengthen the country’s participation in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The Customs boss also celebrated Nigeria’s success at the IPRA Grand Prix, which 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 was developed from a research project led by IMPR Chief Executive Officer, Yushau Shuaib, in collaboration with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Centre for Crisis Communication.
The research examined the growing challenges of AI-driven misinformation, deepfakes and digital information disorder. Its findings were later developed into a strategic communication campaign.
Adeniyi said Nigeria’s success at the Grand Prix showed the country’s growing participation in international strategic communication.
Earlier, the President of IPRA, Esther Cobbah, spoke about the significance of returning to Athens, where the association developed its Code of Conduct for public relations practice 60 years ago.
Cobbah said the 2026 gathering brought together individuals, agencies and organisations that had applied the principles of ethical communication 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,” she said.
