The Nigeria Customs Service is planning to reduce the physical inspection of cargo at the nation’s ports and rely more heavily on Post Clearance Audits as part of efforts to speed up cargo processing and improve revenue collection.
The Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, disclosed this in Lagos on Thursday during a sensitisation programme on Post Clearance Audits involving stakeholders in the sector.
Adeniyi said Customs could no longer depend on extensive physical examinations while trying to facilitate trade and meet increasingly higher revenue targets. He stressed that the focus should instead be on identifying shipments that genuinely require inspection.
Customs collected N7.281 trillion in 2025, exceeding its N6.584 trillion target by N697 billion. The figure was also 19 per cent higher than the N6.1 trillion recorded in 2024.
For 2026, the Service has set a revenue target of N11.074 trillion, with N4.30 trillion already collected by June. Adeniyi said achieving the target would require more efficient revenue assurance rather than simply inspecting more containers.
“Numbers of that order cannot be delivered by opening more containers. They can only be delivered by knowing which of those containers that we must open,” he said.
He referred to a time release study carried out at Tin Can Island Port involving 601 import declarations. The study found that containers spent about five days in the port, even though the actual physical examination took only a few hours.
According to him, 98.7 per cent of the consignments examined spent almost four days between being scheduled for examination and physically leaving the port.
Adeniyi blamed the delays largely on manual processes, poor coordination among agencies and waiting periods within the clearance system.
“The delay is in the architecture. It’s not in the inspection itself,” he said.
Under the Post Clearance Audit system, Customs officers can examine traders’ records after goods have been released. This would reduce unnecessary physical interventions and allow the Service to focus its attention on high risk and non compliant businesses.
Adeniyi said the approach is recognised internationally under the Revised Kyoto Convention and the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement.
He also linked the strategy to the Authorised Economic Operator programme, which provides greater trade facilitation for businesses that demonstrate a strong record of compliance.
According to him, 247 companies have so far been admitted into the programme, while 15 voluntarily disclosed issues involving more than N1 billion in revenue.
Clearance times for AEO companies have also improved significantly, falling from about 156 hours to 43 hours. Huawei, he added, recorded an average clearance time of about eight hours across the ports.
The 247 companies collectively generated more than N3 trillion in Customs revenue in 2025, representing about 43 per cent of the Service’s total revenue.
Meanwhile, the Assistant Comptroller General of Customs in charge of Post Clearance Audit, Babatunde Olomu, said the programme recovered N27.2 billion between August 2025 and August 2026. This was an increase from N21.3 billion recorded during the corresponding period.
Olomu said the 27.7 per cent increase was supported by improved risk based targeting, stronger auditing and better compliance among stakeholders.
Adeniyi said Customs would continue to review its procedures while encouraging businesses to voluntarily disclose errors and correct them.
He added that the effectiveness of Post Clearance Audits would not be judged by revenue recovery alone, but also by improved voluntary compliance, fewer unnecessary inspections and greater confidence in the Customs system.
