Clearance Chaos in Nigeria

Anyone shipping by airfreight to Nigeria recently may have noticed that there has been a problem with clearance. The problem is that the Nigerian Government has not been getting as much revenue from Customs as it thinks it should be getting and so at the beginning of October 2007 sent in the Federal Customs officers to try and find out where the problem lay. The local Customs officiers responded by chaining up the doors to the Customs sheds and refusing to let them in, apparently. The Federal Customs officiers have managed to confiscate at least 7 lorry loads of cargo and have impounded a number of aircraft.

The major consequence has been that hardly any goods have been cleared through customs and incoming cargo is now lying outside the sheds being damaged by rain and disappearing through pilferage. As one Nigerian stated, when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers! A meeting is planned for Monday 15th October (since 11th and 12th are the EID Kabir holiday - marking the end of the Ramadan Fast) since it has been recognised that this series of events cannot continue any further. The probable end result is that the costs of clearance in Nigeria will probably rise.