Part One: Customs
By Citizen Bolaji O. Akinyemi
In faraway Brazil one time ancestral home for the Cardosos, the Da Silva and other African families who returned to Lagos after the abolition of the slave trade era with new names, came a startling claim from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu: that there is “no more corruption” in Nigeria. He told Brazilian ministers and investors that reforms have entrenched transparency, citing the Central Bank of Nigeria and a more open foreign-exchange window: “It’s getting clearer to the people. We have more money for the economy, and no more corruption.” Absolutely, with the removal of subsidies from petroleum products and power should be enough money for the economy. Which we are yet to see. But as for the eradication of corruption, it has become government policies extending tenure of its perpetrators.
That statement has triggered debate at home. Nigerians still confront budget padding, police extortion, judicial manipulation, and procurement rackets. The growing disconnect between the leader and led fertilizes sycophancy; corruption can stare a leader in the face and be misnamed “reform” by praise-singers. Add the undue reach of courtiers and family hangers-on, and you get influence-peddling that shields powerful allies—including, here, the Comptroller-General (CG) of Customs.
This series is a mirror: to show Mr. President, Nigerians, and the world where corruption still hides.
Part One is the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS)—a warehouse of corruption. The case for relieving the CG of his post is now overwhelming.
Documents, Law, and Investigative Testimony: Why the CG Must Go
Nigeria does not need another committee to “discover” what is plain. The NCS is mired in illegality, impunity, and extractive racketeering that bleeds the economy, strangles trade, and endangers national security. Three converging evidentiary strands lead to one conclusion: remove the CG—today.
Sources:
1. Technical memorandum (1 August 2025) by Lucky Eyis Amiwero, veteran reformer and member of multiple Presidential committees on Customs and ports;
2. Instruction letter (15 September 2025) from the Federal Ministry of Finance (MoF) suspending Customs’ illegal 4% FOB levy;
3. Insider testimony detailing spending sprees, revenue leakages, monetized postings, auction abuses, and a travel-and-PR culture that has replaced governance.
Together, they show a Service captured by private interests, insulated from oversight, and weaponized against the productive economy.
1) Smoking Gun of Illegality: A 20-Year Concession Signed by the Wrong Hand
In May 2022, a 20-year “modernization” concession was awarded to Trade Modernization Project Ltd (TMP). The agreement, by its own text, was signed by the Comptroller-General “for the Federal Government”, bypassing the Minister of Finance, who—under CEMA (Cap C45, 2004) Sections 4 & 5—is the statutory authority over the Customs Board. That is not a clerical slip; it is a legal breach and a usurpation of ministerial powers.
Three years and two months later: no robust ICT, no scanners, no commensurate infrastructure. Yet Clause 6 guarantees TMP daily, per-transaction collections—45% of CISS and 25% of NESS in Phase I—without service delivered. In trade, fees must be tied to service. Charging Nigerians for vaporware is daylight robbery dressed in legalese.
This is not modernization; it is a 20-year rent farm.
2) Duplication and IP Traps: Old Wine in a Bad Bottle
What TMP touts as “new” was largely built 2005–2014:
Webb Fontaine deployed ASYCUDA-based platforms, networks, and the Government Executive Vision (GEV) tool for risk, revenue, and facilitation intelligence.
COTECNA, SGS, and Global Scan supplied/operated non-intrusive scanners, ending the 100% manual exam era.
Webb Fontaine’s IP over core tools (including GEV) remains protected. Amiwero’s dossier flags litigation risk (arbitration at ICSID, clause 22.03) if Nigeria keeps relying on protected tools while pretending to “replace” them with a shaky clone. If TMP cannot legally own or supersede those capabilities, its platform is a legal booby trap, with the economy as collateral.
3) The Law Customs Is Ignoring—Again
Under the NCS Act 2023, Section 59(3), terminal/warehouse operators must provide non-intrusive scanners. Any TMP component that charges the public for scanners conflicts with the law and must be stripped out. The concession requires renegotiation—or rescission—where it contradicts statute.
We’ve done this before. Defective concessions—Single Window (2011) and the first COTECNA (2003) deal—were terminated or reviewed downward once legal/operational defects were established. Precedent exists. Courage is missing.
4) A Ministry Letter That Admits the Rot
On 15 September 2025, the MoF ordered immediate suspension of Customs’ newly imposed 4% FOB levy on imports, citing its inflationary impact and the harm to trade facilitation. This is not housekeeping; it is an official acknowledgement that Customs improvised unlawful exactions outside statutory and board oversight. If Customs can conjure a 4% FOB tax today, what else is off-book?
5) Insider Testimony: Cost-of-Collection as Slush; Postings for Sale; Auctions as Plunder
The insider accounts add flesh to the skeleton:
Cost-of-collection spending reportedly jumped from ₦364bn (CG Ali) to ₦706bn (2024), with ₦1.14tn proposed this year: CG as an unelected “Minister of Housing”—land buys, estates—while welfare and recruitment stagnate and borders remain mismanaged.
A spree of vanity travel, sports sponsorships, and global junkets—“now with a new jet”—has replaced in-office governance.
Monetized postings & promotions: from Controllership to prime port/border/gate stations—the exact nodes where rent-seeking thrives.
Overtime/abandoned containers: auction laws allegedly bypassed; public auctioneers sidelined; high-value boxes disposed for peanuts; selective “settlements” in pharma/controlled goods; the country bears the security blowback.
Off-port transfers (PH zone to Kano, Ibadan, Kaduna, Onitsha): free zones/dry ports become shadow clearance hubs where duties are minimized/evaded—including arms, ammunition, and narcotics risk—as chain-of-custody collapses.
Even if half of this is true, this is not “inefficiency.” It is a parallel state run on kickbacks and impunity—with national security as collateral.
6) The Economic Cost: Demurrage, Inflation, a Choked Real Sector
TMP has replayed the 2014 West Blue fiasco: system glitches, “no network,” unreleased assessments, and crippling delays—cascading into demurrage and rents that kill importers and licensed agents. When Customs breaks the pipe, prices spike, MSMEs die, and the consumer bleeds. We then plan to tax an already asphyxiated population in January 2026 as banking/compliance noose tightens. That is not reform; it is a failed-state recipe.
7) Enough. Remove the CG and Put the House in Order
Mr. President, taken together—the illegal concession execution, duplication without deliverables, ministerial suspension of an unlawful levy, and granular insider accounts of systemic abuse—the threshold for loss of confidence has been crossed.
Immediate Actions
1. Relieve the CG and install an interim, professional command with transparent 90-day KPIs.
2. Suspend TMP collections under Clause 6 pending forensic/legal review; stop-pay and claw back where no service was rendered.
3. Re-seat the Minister/Board as the lawful authority under CEMA and the NCS Act 2023; void any ultra vires concession actions.
4. Strip scanners from the concession per Section 59(3); make terminal/warehouse operators contractually responsible with SLAs and penalties.
5. Commission a forensic audit of cost-of-collection (Ali era to date): estates, land, travel, sponsorships, aircraft, PR, consultancies; publish and prosecute where indicated.
6. De-monetize postings/promotions: randomized rotation, external oversight at ports/borders/gates; protected whistleblowing channels.
7. Lawful auctions only: a National Customs Auction Portal; real-time listings; licensed auctioneers; MoF/AGF supervision.
8. Shut illegal terminal transfers; restore chain-of-custody: geo-fencing, tamper-evident seals, joint controls (NDLEA/NAFDAC/NSA/DSS).
9. Stabilize ASYCUDA-based systems on a time-bound plan; if TMP can’t deliver without IP breach/litigation risk, terminate for cause—as Nigeria has done before.
10. Trade-facilitation scoreboard: weekly Ports Performance Dashboard (uptime, processing, demurrage, releases); sanction chronic underperformers.
11. Criminal probes: auction fraud, duty-evasion rings, terminal collusion, and security-threat consignments. No sacred cows.
8) The Principle at Stake
We cannot court investors while mortgaging sovereignty to defective concessions or turning Customs into a private mint. Our laws already locate authority, limit discretion, and prescribe process. When officials jump the rails, the remedy is removal, restitution, and prosecution—not press statements.
If we do not kill Customs corruption now, it will kill our ports, prices, MSMEs, security, and credibility. The documents are on the table. The Ministry’s rebuke is on record. The insider details are specific and testable. The next move is yours, Mr. President.
Ease out the CG. Freeze the cash drain. Fix the system.
Dr. Bolaji O. Akinyemi is an Apostle and Nation Builder; President, Voice of His Word Ministries; Convener, Apostolic Round Table; BoT Chairman, Project Victory Call Initiative (PVC Naija). He is a strategic communicator and CEO, Masterbuilder Communications—prolific writer and leading contributor to the Nigerian discourse.
Email: bolajiakinyemi66@gmail.com
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Phone: +234 803 304 1236
