B' Odogwo Platform: Our Cyber Security Is Top Notch - Customs

Harboursandport.com: Abuja, Nigeria -  March 24, 2026: The National Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, Abdulahi Maiwada, recently spoke with Harboursandport.com on the performance of its indigenous trade facilitation platform, B' Odogwo, disclosing the Service's efforts at stopping attempts to sabotage it as well as accolades received at international meetings after display of the functionality of the platform.

Excerpts:

There have been several attempts to hack the B' Odogwo Platform in the past, why are trying to hack the system and how has the Customs prevented these attacks?

You know, in every system you build, you must have firewalls and a cybersecurity team to manage such attacks. It is one thing to attempt an attack, but it is another to succeed. 

We experienced an attack that slightly affected the speed of the system towards the end of last year; since then, we have not had any downtime. There are people who do not want the system to work, people who want to sabotage it, but we are not relenting. We have a fully functional cybersecurity team that is constantly monitoring to ensure they do not succeed.

There is no system that is not attacked, but the firewalls are there to protect it. Whenever there is an attack, we deploy what we call "air defense." When people attack, we have air defense, we have firewalls, and we have a dedicated cybersecurity team ready to respond to any malicious activity.

There are those who believe that the constant attacks occur because it is an indigenous platform without foreign inputs, and that the attacks have foreign coloration. Do you agree with this?

Yes, it is an indigenous platform, a homegrown solution. We met with some service providers at a technology conference in Abu Dhabi, and part of what we did was showcase B' Odogwo. It was so impressive that a particular technology company admitted they never thought we could achieve it, and that we truly surprised them.

So, whatever the case may be, we have taken B' Odogwo to the world to showcase the system’s functionality. It is not a perfect system, but we are responding to the agitations and expectations of stakeholders. When B' Odogwo started with the pilot scheme at PTML, it was not the same as what we have today. B' Odogwo is a process, a platform that we will continue to update until we are fully satisfied.