The Kwara State Command of the Nigeria Customs Service, Ilorin, North Central Nigeria, says it generated the sum of N3,566,997,587.12 in the first quarter of 2023.
The command also seized some prohibited items, including 451 bags of foreign rice during the same period.
The Customs Area Controller for Kwara Command, Comptroller Kehinde Ilesanmi disclosed this while briefing newsmen on the activities of the command in the first quarter of 2023 in Ilorin, the state capital on Wednesday.
He disclosed that a comparative analysis with the preceding year 2022 indicates that the command has surpassed revenue collected same period last year 2022 with N779,992,680.64.
The Area Controller said the efforts of the command yielded astronomical successes which led to the seizures twenty three different items during the period under review.
According to him, the seizures made by the men of the command included
873 kegs of petroleum of 25 liters each which is about 21, 825 liters of PMS, six units of used vehicles , 451 Bags of foreign parboiled rice (50kg each),
23 bales of secondhand clothing,
one motorcycle used in conveying petroleum.
Ilesanmi disclosed that the cumulative Duty Paid Value (DPV) for all the above seizures is N34, 797, 020.00) which surpasses the Duty Paid Value (DPV) of seizures made in the first quarter of last year 2022 with N 25, 628, 520.00.
He revealed further that in line with the extant laws and Standard Operational Procedure (SOP), most of the inflammable products have been auctioned to members of the public while the amount generated as fees has been remitted into the coffers of the Federal Government.
The Area Controller warned smugglers and would-be smugglers to keep away from the length and breadth of Kwara Command or be ready to face the full wrath of the law.
He added that the leadership of Nigeria Customs Service under the Comptroller General of Customs Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (rtd) remains unrelenting in the bid to continue to foil, frustrate and deplete the activities of economy saboteurs.
In line with this, Ilesanmi said the Kwara Command through its renewed strategies has continued to achieve increased blockage of revenue leakages and preventing the smuggling of prohibited imported items.
Ilesanmi warned that the Command under his leadership would not negotiate the Comptroller General’s zero tolerance to acts of economic sabotage and declared that smuggling in whatever form is an act of economic sabotage and the Command would ensure that it pursues smugglers to their trenches.
