According to the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, Nigeria lost N34 trillion to import duty waivers in 2025, representing 61 percent of the year’s budget.
Adeniyi said duty exemption certificate approvals granted by the federal government on goods and equipment amounted to N34 trillion.
Speaking at an investigative hearing of the Senate Committee on Finance on Monday, the Customs CG disclosed that the country’s import duty exemption certificate issuance has depleted the nation’s revenue.
He noted that the federal government’s fiscal measures have both positive and negative impact on the Service’s revenue generation capacity.
Said Adeniyi, “IDEC approvals reached about N34 trillion in 2025, 60 percent of which was rightly done by the government related to military hardware procurements, which attracted duty exemptions because of Nigeria’s prevailing security challenges. Other government-backed waivers included the importation of compressed natural gas (CNG), electric and hybrid vehicles, healthcare equipment and medical supplies, industrial machinery and manufacturing inputs, and food import intervention programs,” he stated.
The Nigeria Customs Service collected the sum of N7.28 trillion as revenue for 2025.
Import duty waivers had over the years, even before the current security challenges, constituted a major source of customs revenue loss. Former Customs leadership had often lamented this loss, especially as the effects of the waivers are hardly felt by the economy and the citizens.
