By Sandra Chukwunyere
Customs Area Controller (CAC), Lilypond Export Command Lagos, Ajibola Odusanya, on Thursday March 13, 2025 said that processing of consignments for exports by the Nigeria Customs Service at the Port, which is now officially dedicated for exports has improved significantly, reducing processing time to a few hours.
Odusanya made this known while interacting with members of the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN) at the International Press Centre, Apapa, said his Command can process exports within a few hours, but noted that accessing the Export Processing Terminal (EPT), especially in Apapa Port is delayed due to traffic gridlock on the internal port access road.
According to him, transferring the export containers to Apapa Port has become a challenge recently, as priority is placed on exiting import containers out of the port.
However, Comptroller Odusanya assured that the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and APM Terminals are working to improve the port’s internal traffic.
“The NPA has contributed significantly to export facilitation by creating the Electronic Call-up System (ETO) and EPTs at the ports, but the internal port access roads would need more attention to clear up for seamless movement of export containers into the ports for outward shipping.”
In 2022, the Nigeria Customs Service and the NPA reached an agreement to make the Lilypond Port an export processing port as part of the country’s deliberate plans to improve the exportation of non-oil products.
The Lilypond Port Controller explained that due to the presence of all the relevant agencies in the export port, the processing of export goods has become very fast and seamless, leading to the processing of about $2 billion worth of exports from the port between July and December 2024.
“Since after the MoU between Customs and NPA to streamline export to Lilypond Command in July 2024 and the command became the only command processing sea-bound export, we processed about $2 billion in that period between July and December 2024.
“In February 2025, we processed $225 million. This achievement is made possible by collaboration with other government agencies and port stakeholders.
“We now have the DSS, NDLEA, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), and the quarantine service dedicated to export at Lilypond Port. Now, with synergy with these sister agencies, export goods treated at Lilypond port are not stopped by any other agency on their way to Apapa or Tincan port.
Such export will only be checked by Lilypond Customs officers at the port gate and not necessarily to open the container, except there is a security alert,” Odusanya affirmed.
He said that the NPA and the terminal operators would not allow the ugly port access road situation in Apapa in the past to return.
“If you go to Lilypond now, you will see many containers there, but the problem is not with the processing of the exports in Lilypond, but the logistics aspect of moving the containers to the ports.
“Sometimes, even when you have obtained your ETO, you won’t be able to access the port. You see the trucks lined up on the road with export containers on them. We have to work on this so that we don’t return to what it was before.
We have to keep working hard to maintain the sanity on the port road,” Comptroller Odusanya emphasized.
