Customs 2025 Revenue Exceeds Projection, Hits ₦7.28trn

The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, revenue collections for 2025 exceeded projections for the year, hitting ₦ 7.28 trillion.

Comptroller General of the NCS, Adewale Adeniyi, spoke while highlighting the scorecard of the Service during the 2026 World Customs Day on Monday, adding that the reported revenue exceeded earlier projected ₦6.5 trillion by 10 per cent.

Adeniyi stressed that last year showed very clearly what “protecting society” looks like in the real world, pointing out 

that officers of the NCS uncovered 16 containers of contraband goods in the period under review.

His words, “Across our Commands, officers working with sister agencies disrupted multiple criminal supply chains before they ever reached our communities.

“At Apapa, we uncovered 16 containers of prohibited goods worth over ₦10 billion — a single operation that combined narcotics, expired pharmaceuticals, and concealed firearms.

“At the airports, officers intercepted over 1,600 exotic birds being trafficked without CITES permits, stopping a wildlife crime operation that would have harmed both biodiversity and Nigeria’s international obligations.

“These operations do not make headlines for long, but their impact is enduring as fewer young people were exposed to harmful drugs; fewer weapons reaching criminal networks; fewer counterfeit medicines reaching patients; fewer endangered species were removed from the ecosystem...

“This most certainly prevented real harm — addiction, unsafe treatment, violent crime, subsidy, exploitation, environmental degradation, and treaty violations and funerals before they occur ...

“A modern Customs administration must be able to detect high-risk consignments without suffocating lawful trade”, it said, adding that the launch of the Time Release Study is significant.

“The TRS marks a major step toward making Nigeria’s trade gateways secure, efficient, predictable, and globally competitive.

“It signals our commitment to move from opinion-driven reforms to evidence-based reforms, and from complaints-driven policy to data-driven policy.

It shows, on the other hand, that excessive idle periods—often due to fragmented scheduling, manual documentation, and poor coordination—extend clearance times unnecessarily and erode competitiveness. In other words, our challenge is not that we cannot move goods fast; it is that goods are not allowed to move fast.

“We now have validated clearance timelines covering more than 600

declarations, combining manual timestamps and platform data.

“We now know with precision how long it takes from booking for examination to physical gate exit, and where bottlenecks concentrate. 

Armed with such evidence, we are now able to say: the fastest way to protect Nigerian traders and our economy is both through border security and procedural reform...”

He also said that the NCS recorded over 2500 seizures, with an aggregate value of more than ₦59 billion in prohibited and harmful goods removed from circulation nationwide, adding that these 

seizures, cut across narcotics, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, wildlife products, arms and ammunition, petroleum products, vehicles, and substandard consumer goods among others.