Assistant Comptroller Nnenna Ugo Awa was elected by acclamation as Customs Vice Chairperson of the World Customs Organization’s SAFE Working Group during its 33rd meeting in Brussels in October 2026. Japan put her name forward, and the European Union seconded the nomination. Support followed from fellow African delegations and colleagues across other regions.
Awa expresses her gratitude to all who supported her nomination, with special appreciation to colleagues from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Uganda, whose structured guidance and encouragement have been instrumental in her professional growth.
The election brings fifteen years of service in the Nigeria Customs Service into a new field of responsibility: helping guide international cooperation on securing supply chains and facilitating legitimate trade.
It also carries a defined succession pathway. Under the Working Group’s published Terms of Reference, the Customs Vice Chairperson assumes the Customs Chair when the incumbent’s term ends, without a separate election. The Customs Chair serves a maximum term of two years.
For Awa, Nigeria’s pioneer Authorised Economic Operator Programme Lead, the assignment connects closely with work she has helped advance at home.
The WCO represents 187 Customs administrations, collectively handling approximately 98 per cent of world trade. Its work influences how countries manage their borders, protect society and support international commerce.
Within that organisation, the SAFE Working Group brings Customs administrations and business representatives together to maintain and further develop the SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade. It examines implementation challenges, develops proposals for amendments and advises the WCO’s policy and technical bodies. Through this process, experience from border operations and businesses helps inform international standards.
Three relationships underpin the Framework: cooperation between Customs administrations, partnerships between Customs and businesses, and cooperation between Customs and other government agencies. Together, they support the security and movement of goods across borders.
The consequences reach factory floors, shops and households. Businesses cannot afford to have capital frozen at the ports. A manufacturer needs equipment and raw materials to arrive in time for production. An exporter needs confidence that an order will reach its buyer securely and on time. Consumers need protection from dangerous goods. These are the everyday concerns behind the global standards the Working Group helps develop and supports Customs administrations around the world to put into practice.
Awa’s career has brought her into contact with these different demands.
As a pioneer officer in Intellectual Property Rights enforcement, she contributed to the interdiction of counterfeit and copyright infringing goods, helping protect legitimate enterprise and the public. She also served as a pioneer officer of the NCS Environment Unit, extending her experience to environmental protection and regulatory enforcement.
Those assignments required attention to the goods crossing the border, the people responsible for them and the consequences when controls fail. Her leadership of the AEO Programme brought that enforcement experience into a partnership built around compliance, security and dependable trade.
Nigeria launched its AEO Programme nationally on 14 February 2025. Through it, businesses meeting defined compliance and security requirements can receive trade facilitation benefits. Awa subsequently documented Nigeria’s experience in WCO News, sharing the programme’s development with the international Customs community.
Building such a programme involves patient, detailed work. Businesses need clear requirements and practical guidance. Validation must produce credible decisions. Officers at ports and borders must recognise certified operators and deliver the appropriate treatment. When a promised benefit fails to reach a trader, someone must listen and act.
She also serves as the pioneer Lead of the MSME Desk, which she has integrated into the AEO Programme to help smaller businesses strengthen compliance and prepare for certification. Her support for women led enterprises reflects the same concern: helping businesses develop the records, controls and governance needed to participate confidently in formal trade.
Her work on integrity addresses responsibilities within Customs itself.
Awa co-led the development of the Standard Operating Procedure for the implementation of the WCO Internal Corruption Risk Analysis and Mapping, known as ICRAM, within the Nigeria Customs Service. The work supports a structured approach to identifying vulnerabilities in rules, procedures and organisational arrangements.
During the SAFE Working Group’s discussion on collective action for integrity, Nigeria connected this internal work with the need for structured feedback from businesses and other border agencies. The contribution focused on how institutions can bring their experiences together to identify shared risks and agree on practical corrective steps.
Her professional preparation has developed alongside these responsibilities.
She was the first Nigeria Customs Service officer selected for the WCO Strategic Management and Intellectual Property Rights Programme scholarship, through which she earned a master’s degree at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo.
Awa is a WCO Fellowship alumna and an accredited WCO AEO Expert. Her further professional development includes training through the Trade Law Centre, tralac, and a Certificate in Public Leadership and Policy from the School of Politics, Policy and Governance. She is also a recipient of the Comptroller-General of Customs Trailblazers Award.
In reflecting on the election, she expressed deep appreciation to the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, MFR, for the credibility he continues to invest in his officers, opening doors to global opportunities for personnel of the Nigeria Customs Service. She acknowledged the confidence and responsibility that come with being trusted to represent the Service internationally.
Her new role requires listening across administrations with different capacities, businesses with different needs and regions with different trading realities. She brings experience of enforcing standards, helping businesses meet them and examining how Customs can improve its own procedures.
After fifteen years in the Nigeria Customs Service, her work now reaches a wider table. Its value will continue to be measured where trade happens: in the security of a shipment, the reliability of a clearance process and the confidence of a business planning its next delivery.
