The Nigeria Customs Service, Ports Terminal Multiservices Limited, stated that the Command has continued to record a steady increase in revenue collection despite the teething challenges of the B’Odogwu platform.
Disclosing this in a statement obtained by The PUNCH over the weekend, the Command added that it collected the sum of N350bn as revenue from January to September 2025.
The Customs Area Controller in charge of the Command, Joe Anani, explained that the revenue is almost equals N362bn, which was collected by the Command from January to December 2024.
PTML Command of the NCS is one of the frontline commands of the service tasked with import duties, cargo clearance, enforcement of trade regulation (including anti-smuggling), and facilitation of legitimate trade. The Command has been used as a pilot/flagship zone for some of the NCS’s major reforms, especially digital systems and trade-facilitation measures.
B’Odogwu is a Unified Customs Management System developed by NCS in partnership with the Trade Modernisation Project Limited under a 20-year concession agreement.
According to NCS documentation, the ‘B’ stands for Border, while ‘Odogwu’ is an indigenous term meaning “strong, big, rich, or leading”. The naming conveys the ambition for a strong, locally built trade-facilitation system. The system is web-based, designed to replace the Nigerian Integrated Customs Information System platform. The NCS has cited several issues with the older system, including slow processing, among others. The aim of the introduction of the B’Odogwu by the Service was to streamline cargo clearance, reduce delays and costs, increase transparency, and boost revenue collection. It is part of Nigeria’s broader trade-facilitation and digitisation agenda, moving to paperless, automated systems, connecting all logistics/trade stakeholders and agencies.
Speaking further, Anani also revealed that in the third quarter of 2025, the command recorded a total of N116bn as revenue, showing a 34.3 per cent increase when compared to N86.5bn that was collected by the Command in 2024.
Anani explained that a comparative analysis of the Command’s revenue performance in the last quarter shows that the command has maintained a steady increase in collection, “And this is happening despite the teething challenges of the B’Odogwu platform, which the command is fast overcoming.”
“The Command collected the sum of N350bn from January to September 2025 as revenue in the first nine months of the year,” he said.
According to him, within the period under review, the Command also intercepted a 20-foot container with registration number GCNU1275880 falsely declared as supermarket items.
He explained that upon 100 per cent examination, the container was found to contain pharmaceutical drugs.
Speaking of anti-smuggling, the CAC said that two containers of unregistered medicines were also intercepted.
Giving details of the interception, he said, “A 40ft container with number ACLU9806850 falsely declared as magnetic resonance imaging apparatus, but upon 100 per cent examination it was found to contain 6,262 cartons of antibiotics of various brands.”
He added that in line with the Comptroller-General of Customs directive on enhancing customs community relationship, the Command’s existing relationships with sister government agencies and other stakeholders have been boosted.
“In line with the collaboration policy thrust of the CGC, Adewale Adeniyi, the seized containers were handed over to the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control. Our anti-smuggling and enforcement drives remain intact without compromise. As a command, we are not compromising national security on the altar of trade facilitation,” he said.
Earlier, the Director of Port Inspectorate Division at NAFDAC, Dr. Olakunle Olaniran, while receiving the seizures, thanked the NCS for the enforcement drive.
He commended the Memorandum of Understanding between the NCS and NAFDAC as a working pact while urging Nigerians to patronise only registered pharmaceutical vendors.
The NAFDAC Director also praised the CAC for supporting NAFDAC in its duty to safeguard Nigerian lives by ensuring that such prohibited medicines, including hypertension drugs and other prescription medications without NAFDAC numbers, are not allowed into the country.
