9th September, 2023
By Raji Rasak
Donkey skin, petrol in jerry cans, hard drugs, foreign rice were among the items intercepted by the Customs at the Nigerian border in Seme between January and 8 September this year.
In the early hours of 8 September, the Customs men acting on credible intelligence, intercepted 1,364 (30) litres Jerrycans of petrol, equivalent to forty thousand eight hundred (40,800) litres, over one Tanker Load.
The interception was done along the Badagry creek.
The Customs Area Comptroller of the Seme Command, Mr Dera Nandi, told newsmen that the items seized had a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N1.8 billion.
Giving a breakdown, Nandi said the 9,500 kg of rice seized is equivalent to 16 trailer loads of foreign parboiled rice.
It has a Duty Paid Value of N312.2 million.
“Others are 13, 835 jerry cans, loaded with petrol, equivalent to 415, 050 litres or 13 petroleum tankers with DPV of N738,276, 461.
” We also seized 15,389 of General Merchandise Goods, 41 parcels of Cannabis Sativa, 4,900 Tablets 225mg of Tramadol Tamol-X, 3,600 Tablets 225mg Tramadol Royal,” he said.
The controller said the command also seized 157 Tablets of Heineken Ecstacy and 864 packs of cigarette.
“The duty paid value for items seized for the period Jan. 23 to Sept.8 is N1, 827, 362, 619. 00,” he said.
Nandi said that the revenue target for the Command for the year 2023 was N1,960,000,000 only.
“As at this morning of Sept.8, the command has collected N1,904,459, 390.77 only.
“This represents 97.2% of N1,960,000,000 allotted target for the year 2023,” he said.
The controller said in 2022, the command recorded N885,543,098.11 in revenue.
“The implication is that the Command’s revenue profile witnessed a tremendous increase of N1, 018,916, 292. 33 (51.98%).
“This was a result of painstaking efforts made by the leadership of the command in partnership with our stakeholders to ensure compliance with our revenue generation agenda.
“In the area of anti-smuggling operation, you are already conversant with our past headline seizures of fake six million US dollars equivalent to N2.7bn,” he said.