The Kirikiri Lighter Terminal (KLT) Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said it seized about 16 containers concealed with different prohibited items including tramadol, hydro-generated coconut oil and other prohibited worth N229 million.
The command said it also generated N15.8 billion between January and September 2020, surpassing the whole revenue collected in 2019.
Showcasing the seizures to journalists in Lagos on Tuesday, Controller of the command, Comptroller Oladuni Morenike, said most of the items in the seized containers were detained on the ground of wrong declaration.
She said besides tramadol and hydro-generated coconut oil, the command also made seizures of furniture, foreign rice, used tyres and other various items.
Giving the details of the seizures, she said, “The tramadol tablet was discovered by the command’s eagle eye officer on examination. We had an intelligence that the containers have been here for sometimes and we waited for declaration, which never came.
“We brought down the container for examination to confirm based on the intelligence we had. And by the time we opened, we found tramadol concealed with the other medicaments. We had 143, 25 and 86 cartons and all are tramadol and there are other few that are not tramadol inside the container. All together, we had 254 cartons.”
She said the tramadol, all 100 milligrams is far above what is approved by the Federal Government adding that the drugs came in different packages and were also packaged in 10 sachets.
She said the tramadol is under investigation and would be handed over to to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency ( NDLEA) after conclusion of investigation.
“We also had another container declared as hydrogenical coconut oil. But hydro generated coconut oil is prohibited on the item 4 of schedule 3 of Common External Tariff (CET). We had another container with basmatic rice and other things falsely declared. All the containers are 16 in number with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N229 million,” she added.
