The Area Controller of Kirikiri Lighter Terminal Command in Lagos, Mr Hammi Swomen, on Thursday, said it had seized some items including bottled waters.
Swomen disclosed this to journalists at the Kirikiri Command, saying relevant stakeholders had been invited to take a sample of the suspicious imported bottled water for a test.
Other items displayed were vegetable oil, used car tyres and vehicles.
The controller wondered why anyone would import bottled water with a Duty Paid Value of N28,656,879 into Nigeria.
He said five containers were seized, adding that three contained vegetable oil with a total number of 2,772 pieces of five-litre kegs.
Another container has 2,655 pieces of used tyres concealing two used cars, one Toyota Carina E200 model and one Mazda 323 2004 model, and the fifth container has 16,920 bottles of one-litre Augus-Towanka bottled water.
All the declared seized items have a collective amount of DPV to the sum of N55,793,521.
The controller also revealed that the command had been able to collect the sum of N7,968,865,907 in the first quarter of 2021.
He said, “I am happy to announce to you that in our first quarter report of 2021, we have made substantial progress. The command collected a total of N7,968,865,907.00. This collection surpasses the comparative period of 2020 which had N5.8bn.
“This represents a 36.8 per cent increase in duties collected. For the first time in the history of this command, we made a monthly collection of over N3bn. The three containers of vegetable oil were declared as crude oil.”
He added that those other items, bottled water, used tyres and the vegetable oil, were prohibited by Schedule 3, item No. 11 and 14 of the Ecowas Common External Tariff 2017-2021.
