By Stephen Ubanna
For much of last year, Compt. Mohammed Babandede, Area Controller of Port harcourt II, Command, Onne, Rivers state was in the news that it had won the Customs Comptroller General, CGC, Barshir Adewale Adeniyi, MFR, Special Recognition, Best Command in anti-smuggling activities instead of the Federation UNIT, FOU, Zone, a, Ikeja, Lagos in the November 29, 2024, Customs Awards, in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
Compt. Babandede had expected to sustain the track records in the first and second quarter of 2025, as his Counterpart at the Apapa Command, Compt. Babatunde Olomu, described in Customs circles as a revenue mobilizer, overseeing the nation’s premier port which handles over 60% of the country’s imports had tightened up security at the port that the fraudulent shippers no longer have a hiding place.
The expansion of the B’Odogwu platform, an indigenous technology which had replaced the Nigerian Integrated Customs Information System, NICIS II, a foreign technology operated by WEBB Fontaine for the Service in the past years, may have enhance the Command’s strategy of tracking prohibited cargoes including pharmaceutical products shipped into the port by fraudulent importers.
The success that had been achieved by the B’Odogwu facility in tracking shipped prohibited cargoes from the Asian country of China and other parts of the world into the Nigerian market at the Apapa port in the last six months, may have informed why the Customs Authorities have sent a signal to the industry stakeholders of plans to further fine-tune the homegrown trade portal, B-Odogwu facility in line with its efforts to simplify international trade.
The importers with the their agents and other industry stakeholders who were said to have listened to him with rapt attention on Monday, July 21, 2025, at the Customs Training College, Ikeja, Lagos, Hall, when he declared that ‘’it has expedient to fell the pulse of stakeholders across the trade value chain on the operations of the home grown technology with a view of fine-running its operations for greater efficiency and making the system more user friendly.
Without sounding immodest, the Customs helmsman and Chairman, World Customs Organisation, WCO, who could not hide his feelings had said that the B’Odogwu Clearance since its deployment at the Port- Multi-services Terminal Limited late 2024, and early this year at the Lagos ports of Apapa and Tin -can Island port, TCIP, has demonstrated tremendous potential in enhancing clearance efficiency improving cargo visibility and boosting the Service revenue generation.
According to Abdullahi Maiwada, an Assistant Comptroller, AC, and the Service spokesperson, the Town Hall meeting with industry stakeholders, stemmed from a series of consultations led by the support team, others by the Information, Communication and Technology, ICT/ Modernization Department and many, personally undertaken by the CGC, over the last two weeks.
The Customs Comptroller General was said to have used the opportunity provided by the town Hall meeting to reiterate of his vision to make the B’Odogwu platform a benchmark for digital trade facilitation, now that Nigeria currently chairs the World Customs Organisation, WCO,Hear Him: Our goal is to make the B’Odogwu the reference point in trade facilitation.
As a prelude to raising the funds for modernization of the B-Odogwu and the Service other trade modernization initiatives and projects across the country with a view to facilitating hitch-free trade processes in Nigeria, the CGC, may have dampened the enthusiasm of the importers with agents who are already facing challenges in navigating the system when he expressed concerns surrounding the newly introduced 4% Free On Board, FOB, levy , clarifying that ‘’it will replace multiple existing levies at the nation’s sea ports.
He may have tried to calm frayed nerves when declared that ‘’once the 4% FOB takes effect, the 1% Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme, CISS, will cease automatically. He did not stop there. The Osun state born Customs Comptroller General, had said that the 7% cost of collection currently charged importers will also be removed completely.
Given an insider information, the CGC, had said that ‘’under the new Act, the 4% FOB, is paid upfront and that is it’’. Kikelomo Adeola, a Deputy Comptroller General of Customs, DCG, overseeing the Service ICT/ Modernisation, in her welcome address at the Town Hall meeting in Lagos, had underscored the strategic value of stakeholder collaboration, stating that ‘’it is a vital platform to engaged the valued customers on the B’Odogwu Clearance System’’.
Saleh Amahdu, Chairman of Trade Modernisation Project Limited, TMPL, was said to have assured participants at the Town Hall meeting in Lagos of the initiatives long- term benefits, noting that the stem is committed to investing in the right technology, people and services. ‘’the project will significantly enhance the experience of all port users in the trade value chain’’, he had said.
In spite of the fact that the CGC and his Management have not made of their promise to modernize the already deployed B’Odogwu facility to PTML and the Lagos port of Apapa, Tin-can and which had been extended to the One port, Compt Babandede, has made history again.
The Customs Comptroller who has beamed a searchlight on the cargoes passing through the port as Compt. Olomu, the no nonsense Area Controller of the Apapa Command, has made a mockery of the fraudulent pharmaceutical and expired food importers may want to relocate to the Onne port with the believe that he and the Port Harcourt Area II, Controller and his officers at the strategic locations at the Onne port had relaxed but were disappointed. This is evident going by the number (16) of containers that had been intercepted and seized at the port, with most of it loaded with pharmaceutical products.
AC. Maiwada, had said that barely weeks after the NCS and the National Council for Food and Drug Administration and Control, , NCFDAC, under the close watch of Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, set up a Committee to complement the 2024, Memorandum of Understanding , MOU, aimed at deepening regulatory collaboration , the two government agencies alongside other security outfits at the port recorded a major breakthrough with the interception and seizure of the16 Containers of illicit Pharmaceutical products valued at N20.5 billion at the Onne port.
The NCS spokesperson had alluded to the remarks of the CGC, who had attributed the seizure ‘to the Command’s intelligence-driven enforcement and renewed synergy among national security and regulatory agencies’’.
The 11 of the Containers was said to have contained illicit pharmaceutical products while four Container had contained bottled waters and one Container of Salt. The CGC, was said to have told those that cares to listen going by the illicit pharmaceutical products that had been seized at the Apapa port and the Onne port, at different times this 2025, that the Service anti-smuggling operations actually aligns with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ‘s policy on Border Security and public health and national safety.
‘’We ae committed to ensuring that Nigera’s land and sea borders are exploited by fraudulent importers and other criminal elements’’, CGC Adeniyi had remarked. Informed sources told the Value News online Magazine that the smugglers had attempted to disguise the illicit drugs as regular imports such a tomato paste, ceiling fans, and plumbing materials, by employing sophisticated concealment tactics but still fell into the waiting hands of the officers at the port.
A breakdown of the illicit pharmaceutical products found in the 16 Containers intercepted and seized at the Onne ports shows that it contains 1.3 million bottles of codeine syrup, 100ml, each and 9.3 million tablets Really Extra Diclofenac. This in addition to 12.6 tablets of Royal tramadol, 225mg, and other unregistered and dangerous pharmaceuticals like Trodol, Hyergra, Bisoveu and Basuka.
In the spirit of inter-agency synergy, the 16 intercepted and seized Containers of illicit pharmaceutical products were said to have been officially handed over to the NFDAC, Director General for further investigation and destruction in accordance with due process.
In her landmark speech, Prof Adeyeye, had commended CGC Adeniyi and his officers for their vigilance in the making the spectacular seizures, describing as ‘’shocking’’. She was emphatic that if these illicit pharmaceutical products had found their way into the Nigerian market, it would destroy lives. She was particular about Codeine, Tramadol, and the counterfeit pain killers.
The NAFDAC Professor noted that the fact some of the illicit pharmaceutical products were hidden in tomato pste clearly sows their criminal intent, describing it as ‘’murder for profit’’.
Given the Agency’s top hierarchy decision to get to the root of the matter, Prof. Adeyeye was said to have assured the Customs, CG, that ‘’all the seized items would undergo comprehensive regulatory procedures, including laboratory testing, documentation and destruction s a deterrence to other illicit drug importers.
Contrary to allegations making the rounds that some of these seized drugs handed over NAFDAC, for destruction still found their way into the Nigerian market but the NAFDAC, DG, would not take it. ‘’ We are WHO, certified, with international-standard laboratories and well-trained personnel, stating categorically that ‘’these pharmaceutical products that had been condemned and proven to killer-drugs will never make it into the Nigerian market as it will be completely destroyed according to the Law of the land.
