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‎By Izuchukwu Ozoemena
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‎The practical deployment of the Electronic  Cargo Tracking System (ECTS) technology in real-time cargo monitoring, the first of its kind, took place Wednesday at the Apapa Command of the Nigeria Customs Service. The ECTS, a digital initiative, is designed to enhance national security, boost revenue generation and facilitate seamless trade across Nigerian ports.

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‎The Apapa Command experiment which was successfully done using a container designated for the Kano/Jigawa Area Command, marked the first practical deployment of the technology in real-time cargo monitoring says the Command’s image maker, Superintendent of Customs Tunde Ayagbalo on behalf of the Controller.
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‎Speaking as the event, the Customs Area Controller, Apapa Command, Comptroller Emmanuel Oshoba, described the ECTS as a strategic initiative that enables real- time monitoring of cargo movement from the point of departure to the final destination. The system, he explained, uses electronic seals and hand-held devices to track containers, ensuring transparency, preventing tampering, and eliminating diversion of goods in transit.
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‎Comptroller Oshoba noted that Apapa Command is serving as the pilot stage for the nationwide rollout of a technology designed to drastically reduce the need for physical escorts, as customs officers can now monitor cargo movement electronically.
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‎He commended the vision of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, describing him as a reform-driven administrator who has consistently championed automation and innovation. He highlighted that the ECTS has already been implemented in several countries and as the current Chairperson of the World Customs Organization (WCO), the CGC has ensured that Nigeria adopts similar modern tools to improve its trade environment.
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‎Throwing more light, the Head of B’Odogwu Implementation at Apapa Command , Deputy Comptroller Aondona Christopher Fanyam, explained that before the container reaches Kano Command, it remains sealed and cannot be opened until proper authorisation is confirmed at the destination. He said the ECTS provides three secure methods for unlocking a container: remotely through the central control system, locally via an authorised hand-held device such as a mobile phone used by trained officers, or by using a physical unlocking card designed specifically for use at the destination.
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‎He added that these layered access options are part of the system’s in-built  safeguards to prevent unauthorised tampering or diversion during transit. The combination of remote control, hand-held verification and a physical card ensures that only properly authorised personnel can release cargo, reinforcing cargo integrity and strengthening overall security and revenue protection.
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‎The Team Leader of the training unit , Chief Superintendent of Customs , Rosemary Ebele Wenceslas said the service has trained  a total of 12 officers participating in the pilot phase of the Electronic Cargo Tracking System (ECTS). The team comprises personnel drawn from the Rapid Response Unit of the Federal Operations Unit Zone A Ikeja (FOU) and the Enforcement Team of Apapa Area Command.
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‎ The officers, she  explained, have undergone intensive training to ensure they are fully prepared to manage and operate the new tracking technology efficiently. All Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) related to the ECTS have been clearly communicated to them, enabling smooth implementation of the initiative.
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‎CSC Wenceslas noted that with the knowledge and technical capacity they have acquired, the officers are well equipped and ready to deploy the devices effectively, ensuring that the pilot stage achieves its objectives of enhanced cargo monitoring, security, and trade facilitation.
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‎By Izuchukwu Ozoemena
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‎The significance of the ancient town of Badagry in Nigeria’s land border trade and the nagging issue of multiplicity of checkpoints along the Lagos-Seme stretch of the Lagos-Abidjan ECOWAS trade corridor formed the subject matter at a maritime industry engagement in Lagos, Friday.
‎The event put together in Badagry by Baggage Associates in collaboration with Fredrose Foundation was to mark the 20th anniversary celebration of The Baggage Maritime Magazine, a notable industry monthly which birthed in the ancient town of Badagry, 2005.

Chief Okey Iroegbu, Publisher, ‘The Baggage Maritime Magazine’ in his welcome remarks.

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‎Delivering a lecture on the topic ‘Badagry: Nigeria’s Gateway to ECOWAS Trade Facilitation,’ frontline customs broker, Barr Ejike Metu, added a strong voice to the trending robust discussion on the need to reduce or eliminate what he described as the war-like checkpoints scattered along the route leading inward  and  outward the ancient town of Badagry, a community endowed with rich natural boundaries for security purposes along the lagoon, using the Gbaji Bridge as a beat. Highlight of Metu’s submission at the occasion is that Customs anti-smuggling activities should start from the Seme border post and end at Gbaji.
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‎”The Agbara Customs checkpoint is, therefore, not necessary as it remains a snare and a thorn in the flesh for those living in this area for so many reasons.”
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‎”The joy of the presence of any government establishment in any community is the uncommon development it will bring to the area. With Seme border becoming a customs revenue generation point, Badagry, thirty- -three years after, should be thriving in commerce, warehousing, storage facilities and hospitality businesses. In other words, Badagry should be a major trade hub. Heavy duty trucks used for haulage to convey goods on transit from Benin to Nigeria should be relieved of the incessant falling and damages if the system allows them to discharge their contents at any warehouse as soon as they cross the Gbaji joint checkpoint as the final outgate notwithstanding the tasks at the frontier.”
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‎Metu condemned what he referred to as a proliferation of unapproved agencies identified flaunting different colours of  uniforms mounting road blocks for different purposes. These agencies include the regular Police, Mobile Police, Quarantine Services, Customs and Immigration which are prominent at the border as a result of the policies of government.
‎”In Nigeria, the Customs plays a stringent and vital role at the borders unlike in the United States of America where the Immigration Service is more prominent because of the rate of illegal migrations to America on a daily basis.”
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‎”Nigeria is surrounded by francophone countries of Republic of Cameroon in the east, Benin Republic in the West,Chad and Niger in the north. In these countries, their borders are referred to as frontiers. No known serious international conflict has arisen from these neighbouring countries except for Cameroon which won an International Court of Justice case against Nigeria over the oil -rich Bakasssi Peninsula and some provocative manoeuvres from Benin Republic once in a while. Despite these, we have considered most of these boundaries and borders in Africa as mere political partitions derived from imperialistic domination of our past colonial masters and the Berlin agreement.”
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‎Metu explained that the Nigeria Customs Service is saddled with the arduous task of bringing smuggling to a standstill, recalling that during a routine visit to the Seme-Mile 2 road in 2005, Senator Ade Fadahunsi, a retired Assistant Comptroller-General of Customs, was astonished with the number of police checkpoints along Seme-Mile 2 axis of the road. He frowned at a situation where the police had virtually taken over Customs job along the axis. This observation necessitated a joint meeting of the Police, Customs and Immigration at the Seme and Idiroko borders in 2005 aimed at the formation of a joint patrol to curtail the high rate of trans-border crimes prevalent then.
‎Regrettably, the initiative designed to reduce the arbitrary number of checkpoints on the road ended up a jamboree as the extortion of commuters and the attendant national embarrassment continued unabated.  Officers at the checkpoints were suspected to be rendering handsome weekly returns to their respective superiors to remain relevant in the orgy. Officers and men on the road became more dedicated and meticulous in carrying out their unwholesome activities!
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‎Metu regretted the present deplorable condition of the road from Badagry Roundabout to Seme border and urged the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) to take precautionary measures to keep the newly reactivated Mile 2 to Badagry stretch safe and free.
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‎It is recalled that following the burning of tyres as caution to other road users any time trucks break down or fall, this damages the weak bitumen already existing on the already dilapidated Seme -Badagry road thereby creating uncountable potholes and craters. Dangerous accidents and avoidable loss of lives and costly goods on the Seme- Lagos road, Metu stated, can be averted if  goods-laden trucks can be allowed to discharge their contents within Badagry and other outskirts of the border.
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‎By Izuchukwu Ozoemena
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‎In what signposts the highest monthly revenue generation by any customs command in the history of the Nigeria Customs Service, the Apapa Command, last October, hit a record-breaking ₦304b collection. This is contained in a release by the Command image maker, Superintendent of Customs J.T. Ayagbalo, on behalf of the Customs Area Controller, Comptroller Emmanuel Oshoba.
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‎”This record which beats the ₦264b collected in the month of October 2024 has brought the total collection by the command for the first ten months of this year to ₦2,402,141,493,747.06″.
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‎With this, the release  says, the command has surpassed the total collection it achieved in 2024 two months before the end of 2025.
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‎Comptroller Oshoba who commended the officers and stakeholders for their contributions to the spectacular achievement described it as the beginning of more revenue generation exploits on his watch.
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‎The latest revenue feat, the  CAC stated, is an initial proof that Apapa Command is ready to process higher volume of trade which will translate to greater collection for government.
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‎He informed that officers and men have been sensitized ahead for a regime of Drive Through Scanning that would process an average of 150 containers per hour from the quayside which will be revolutionary in the annals of trade facilitation in any West African port.
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‎Rising from an in-house training for newly promoted Deputy Comptrollers and Assistant Comptrollers of Customs, Apapa Command, the CAC explained, is set to deliver optimally in line with the directives of the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, MFR.
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‎” I commend my officers and our compliant stakeholders for this revenue collection milestone, but it’s not our final destination. While we are deploying all tools of trade facilitation as directed by the CGC, including the  One-Stop-Shop (OSS) which harmonizes all customs procedures and processes to save time and promote efficiency, we are also preventing revenue leakages.
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‎” We have a zero compromise stance in the application of demand notices (DN) for the recovery of uncovered shortfalls in revenue and my officers are very vigilant checking any attempt to misapply Harmonised System (HS) Code for duty evasion.
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‎” To accentuate the importance we attach to trade facilitation, I have personally paid unannounced visits to some parts of the port access roads where I urged truckers, freight forwarders and licensed customs agents to cooperate with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) by prioritising the movement of their cleared consignments out of the ports
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‎”I have also visited the Port Manager to strengthen our collaboration towards making Apapa Port very efficient. If cleared consignments fail to exit, new ones coming for examination or scanning would be slowed down and this affects trade directly while impeding on the NCS revenue collection and trade facilitation mandates.
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‎CAC Oshoba beckoned on all stakeholders to support the Command to consolidate and build on the existing  achievements recorded in revenue collection and trade facilitation.
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‎”We are ready to do better,” Comptroller Oshoba assured.
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