Border Closure: Nigeria Customs Generates N6b Daily

The closure of the Nigerian border has continued to create a more positive impact on the impact of the nation as the country made a record-breaking profit of five to six billion nairas daily.

Naija News learnt the NCS Comptroller-General Col. Hammed Ali (rtd.) who made this known attributed the rise to increased activities at the nation’s seaports.

“The NCS daily collection before the border closure ranged between N4 to N5 billion but now, the NCS collects N5billion to N6 billion daily as a result of the rise in activities at the nation’s sea ports,” Ali said on Tuesday at a forum on the “impact of land border closure on the Nigerian economy.”

The Customs boss, who was represented by the ACG/Zonal Co-ordinator, Zone A, KayCee Ekekezie, also said the border closure had led to a 30 per cent drop in fuel hitherto supplied by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for local consumption.

He added that the sums being realized from the ports would help the Federal Government provide more infrastructures and add fillip to critical sectors of the economy.

Ali also stated that before the border closure, NCS had engaged the customs of neighboring countries severally, drawing their attention to the need to comply with ECOWAS protocols on transit of goods and persons.

He said: “The protocol demands that when a transit container berths at a seaport, the receiving country is mandated to escort same without tampering with the seal to the border of the destination country.

“Unfortunately, experience has shown that our neighbours do not comply with the protocol, rather they break the seals of containers on transit to Nigeria at their ports and transload the goods in open trucks which belongs to their country. The trucks will in turn make entry into Nigeria and trans load same onto Nigerian trucks.”