NIKE ADEJUWON
LAGOS, Nigeria — Manufactured goods became the largest export category handled by the Nigeria Customs Service’s Lilypond Export Command in the third quarter of 2026, more than doubling in value as total exports processed through the Lagos facility reached $752.85 million.
The command recorded exports valued at approximately ₦1.03 trillion during the three months ended September, compared with $586.15 million in the corresponding period of 2025, an absolute increase of about $166.7 million.
The Acting Controller of the command, Deputy Comptroller Olusola Oluyemi Salako, disclosed the figures while presenting the facility’s third-quarter performance in Lagos.
The export performance was accompanied by an increase in container traffic. Lilypond processed 16,345 export containers during the period, compared with 10,987 in Q3 2025, representing an additional 5,358 containers.
Manufactured goods provided the strongest contribution to the increase, with their export value rising from $169.90 million in the third quarter of 2025 to $402.52 million in the corresponding period of 2026.
The category accounted for more than half of the command’s reported export value during the quarter, overtaking agricultural produce as the largest contributor.
Agricultural exports, however, declined from $346.11 million to $310.98 million, while solid minerals exports fell sharply from $62.27 million to $6.49 million.
Exports classified under other products increased from $7.87 million to $32.86 million.
Salako attributed the growth in manufactured exports partly to the government’s emphasis on domestic processing and value addition, urging exporters to move beyond shipping raw agricultural commodities and embrace processing before export.
He said the command had continued engaging exporters on compliance and government policies intended to strengthen domestic manufacturing and improve the value Nigeria earns from its exports.
On the decline in solid minerals shipments, the acting controller cited government policies discouraging the export of unprocessed minerals and efforts to curb illegal mining activities.
The performance comes amid broader growth in cargo activity across Nigeria’s port system.
The Nigerian Ports Authority reported that total cargo throughput across the country’s ports rose by 12.2 per cent to 68.2 million metric tonnes in the first half of 2026, compared with 60.8 million tonnes in the corresponding period of 2025.
Outward cargo increased by 23.5 per cent to 29.2 million tonnes, while container traffic rose by 10.3 per cent to 815,236 twenty-foot equivalent units.
The Lilypond figures point to a growing contribution from processed goods in Nigeria’s export trade, although the decline in agricultural and solid minerals shipments shows that the improvement is not uniform across all product categories.
Sustaining the gains will require reliable port operations, efficient Customs processing, better export logistics and stronger capacity among local manufacturers and commodity processors.
