The Nigeria Customs Service will spend a staggering N14.39bn on new luxurious vehicles for its senior officers in 2025.

This is part of a larger N35.27bn budget for 579 official vehicles, according to the service’s proposed appropriation bill obtained by our correspondent on Wednesday.

Out of the total 579 vehicles, the senior officers would take the majority.

The most expensive of these vehicles are intended for officers at the ranks of Comptroller, Assistant Comptroller-General, and Deputy Comptroller-General, with unit prices ranging from N44m to N75m.

Among the brands to be acquired are BYD hybrids, CHANGAN, MAXUS D90, NISSAN MG5, MIKANO, and NORD vehicles.

The breakdown includes 20 CHANGAN CS95 vehicles for ACGs at N68m each, totalling N1.36bn; 15 MAXUS D90 SUVs for DCGs at N70m each, totalling N1.05bn and 20 QIN BYD Hybrid sedans for ACGs at N65m each, totalling N1.3bn.

Others are 15 HAN BYD Hybrid sedans for DCGs at N75m each, totalling N1.125bn; 180 sedans for Comptrollers, comprising NORD C3, MIKANO CHAGGAN EADO, and NISSAN MG5—each at N44.625m each, totalling N9.55bn.

The proposal also includes 50 NORD TUSK trucks, 50 NISSAN NAVARA trucks, 100 JIM 4WD trucks, and 10 30-seater buses for various administrative and operational purposes.

The allocation has sparked strong criticism from civil society advocates who described the plan as wasteful and insensitive, especially given the country’s harsh economic realities.

The Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, earlier in the year, said the service recorded 397 seizures of vehicles worth N5.64bn in 2024, along with thousands of bags of rice and other restricted goods in a bid to protect local industries and enforce import regulations.

In 2023, the Service seized 3,491 vehicles, with a Duty Paid Value of N2bn.

Two Anti-corruption groups, Transparency and Accountability Group and Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, argued that these impounded vehicles could serve the operational needs of the service, rather than being auctioned or left idle while the agency spent billions on new imports.

Speaking to The PUNCH, the convener of TAG, Ayo Ologun, said the Customs’ budget reflected “hypocrisy and insincerity at the highest levels of government.”

He said, “Customs claim to be generating revenue for the country, yet they waste the same funds through extravagant vehicle purchases.

“So the question would be, if you are sincere about what you are doing, the same vehicles that you have auctioned over time, maybe in the last six months or one year, for non-payment of tax or one reason or the other, are they not good enough to be used by your senior officers?

“If it means they will only need to carry out a few repairs on them and flip the country on necessary and a very poor expenditure?

“Or would the same amount, the money needed to repair, be equal to the money to buy? So why can’t you take luxury vehicles among those that you have impounded and seized, that you are paying out for auction, why can’t you take some of them, spend a little money on them to repair and make them usable for the benefit of your senior officers that you want to buy vehicles for and save us as a nation from this wastage?”

The Executive Director of CAROL, Debo Adediran, called the procurement “obscene opulence,” urging government agencies to be more empathetic toward the citizens.

He said, “It is not at a time like this that one should engage in frivolity. They are too ostentatious of the economy of Nigeria. This is the time when they should empathise with the people.

“At least they should not rob us and show it to us and tell us maybe what we can do. This is why people exhibit their frustrations with the government at some levels.

“People are unable to raise resources, to take more to their workplaces, to their places of economic activities. Some people are roasting in poverty.

“And our leaders will be showing unbridled immoral affluence. I don’t believe that Customs officials need new vehicles.

“That is what they do in government, buying vehicles now and then, even when the ones that they are using are still serviceable.

“So many frivolous spending that could have taken care of healthcare, education, and essential needs of the people. Basically, it is uncalled for. It is unwarranted. It is like taking the people for granted.”