The Port and Terminal Multi-Services Limited (PTML) Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has reported a major surge in revenue, generating ₦116.2 billion in the third quarter of 2025. This marks a significant 34.3% increase from the ₦86.5 billion collected during the same period in 2024.
Disclosing the figures at a press briefing in Lagos, the Command’s Area Controller, Comptroller Joe Anani, highlighted the cumulative success. Between January and September 2025, the Command collected a total of ₦350.3 billion. With three months left in the year, this figure is already 96.6% of the total ₦362.5 billion generated in all of 2024.
Comptroller Anani, who took office six weeks prior, attributed the improved performance to enhanced operational efficiency under the Unified Customs Management System (UCMS), also known as B’Odogwu. “I took over a well-organised command,” he stated, “and on my watch, we have sustained the tempo of achievements in revenue collection, trade facilitation, prevention of smuggling, stakeholders’ engagement, and inter-agency collaboration.”
Major Seizures and Enforcement Efforts
Beyond revenue collection, the PTML Command intensified its anti-smuggling efforts.
The Command intercepted firearms, including one pistol, two magazines, and 12 rounds of live ammunition.
Crucially, Customs handed over two containers filled with imported fake pharmaceutical products—valued at over ₦200 million—to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
40-foot container: Falsely declared as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus, it was found to contain 6,262 cartons of various antibiotic brands.
20-foot container: Declared as supermarket goods, it contained assorted pharmaceutical products.
“Our anti-smuggling and enforcement drives remain intact without compromise. As a Command, we are not trading national security for trade facilitation,” Anani emphasized. The handover aligns with the Comptroller-General of Customs’ directive to strengthen inter-agency collaboration and prevent harmful products from entering the Nigerian market.
Receiving the seized goods, Dr. Olakunle Olaniran, Director of the Port Inspection Directorate for NAFDAC, highly commended the Customs Service for its vigilance.
“What is happening today is a celebration of success—substandard and falsified medicines have been prevented from entering public circulation, where they could have caused unimaginable harm or death,” Dr. Olaniran stated. He noted that the seized products were fast-moving items, like antibiotics and high blood pressure drugs, packaged to be almost indistinguishable from genuine products.
He concluded with a warning to the public: “When you want to buy medicines, please patronise licensed pharmacies where a pharmacist will attend to you. Don’t buy from hawkers or people selling from briefcases. Fake antibiotics can lead to death.”
