The Customs Area Controller, Lillypond Export Command, Comptroller Ajibola Odusanya has said that the formal designation of the command as an export processing one was what changed its changed its story for good.
He also disclosed that the command handles no fewer than 70 percent of the tonnage value of export going out of Nigeria.
While insisting that there was no other export command in the whole of the South West geo-political zone, he disclosed that the command was created as the sole export command to handle export goods in 2022 and was headed by Comptroller Babandede.
Odusanya made these disclosures recently at a roundtable with the members of the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) at its International Press Centre, Apapa, Lagos.
He argued that if the South West region, especially Lagos was responsible for 70 percent of Customs duty, it would be right for one to say that Lillypond Export Command was responsible for nothing less than 70 percent of the tonnage value of export going out of Nigeria.
He gave an insight into the evolution of the command over the years saying that at that period of its creation, although the command was handling only export, it was not the sole export command as other commands around the port were still handling part of the export goods.
His words: “We were not doing export alone then because we had export seats in Apapa, Tin Can Island, PTML and even Lekki ports. But due to the directive from the government through PEBEC and pressures from other government agencies like the Nigerian Export Promotion Council and the Nigerian Ports Authority, there came a Memorandum of Understanding between the NPA and Nigeria Customs Service to streamline all export processes to a command hence the Lillypond Export Command became the sole export command around the South West around July 2024. It was in July 2024 that the command became the only command processing sea bound export in Apapa.”
The CAC stated that following the successful designation and take off of the Lillypond Export Command as the sole export processing command in Nigeria, other government agencies like the Department of State Services (DSS), Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Nigerian Agriculture Quarantine Service among others deployed their officers dedicated to export to the Lillypond Export command.
According to him, before this arrangement, goods treated by NDLEA officers at Lillypond, on getting to Apapa or Tin Can Island Port still have another NDLEA officer stopping them for checking. That was the practice before. But with the collapse and also with the synergy that we have with other government agencies, goods treated by any government agencies officials at Lillypond now, no other officer of that particular agency will stop that container on its way to the port elsewhere.
Continuing, Odusanya said: “Even Customs before the collapse, when export goods treated by Lillypond were moving to the port, Apapa or Tin Can Island ports export seat officers and their enforcement officers will still be stopping those containers either at the gate or inside the port. But now, we do not have anything like that.
“Export goods treated by Lillypond are given the gate in and ETO to enter the port’. They will only be checked by Lillypond officers at the port gate to confirm that they have been duly treated in the office. And that checking does not mean that they will open the container, unless it is extremely necessary, maybe, based on intelligence. This is because jobs treated in the office are sent to our officers at the port gate online.
“Those coming by water because we have some exports coming by barges into the port too, it is the same process. Just as we have our officers at the gate, we also have our officers at the jetty. So, the place is so sanitized and automated that export goods now move seamlessly into the port either through road or through water”, he explained.
On the relationship between the command and the Nigerian Railway Corporation ((NRC), the Customs Chief said: “We have goods being moved by rail from outside Lagos to this place. Some come as far as he North. We have this understanding with the customs commands outside here that goods coming by rail especially those already examined by our colleagues outside Lagos, they have a way of sending a message to us online and from there we do the shipping note and send everything into the port and may be message to the terminal operators. We do not stop them because they have been examined by those people and they have sent the report to us. That is the synergy we have with our colleagues especially from the North. We have this understanding with Kano/Kaduna Commands.
“Recently, I heard that some containers will be moving from Oyo State too. I told you that our officers used to go as far as Ondo State, maybe Oyo/Osun, some of those containers may move to the port through rail. Similar processes will follow just like the ones coming from the North so that they will issue the shipping note that they will use to enter the ports.”
