From John Adams, Minna
The Customs Area Comptroller in charge of Niger/Kogi Area Command of the Nigeria Customs, Mr. Busayo Kadejo, has expressed deep concern over the increasing use of government number plates by suspected smugglers, to smuggle second hand vehicles into the country through the land borders.
Mr. Badejo stated this in Minna yesterday when the command displayed 15 vehicles of various make intercepted, bearing the number plates of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). No fewer than five suspects in connection with the crime were arrested by the command.
The command had, in October, seized no fewer than 57 exotic cars with the majority of them carrying the Presidency number plates and other government agencies and parastatals.
Mr. Badejo, who put the value of the seized vehicles at N141.6 million, said the activities of the smugglers using number plates of government agencies and parastatals was becoming a very disturbing trend in recent times.
The Area Comptroller, who used the opportunity to enumerate the achievements of the command in the month of November alone, pointed out that a number of detentions and seizures were made by officers and men of the anti smuggling unit of the command.
He listed the seized items within the period to include 229 cartons of pharmaceuticals, 657 cartons of sardine fish, 305 cartons of imported soap (jara), 12 bales of second hand clothes, four bales of footwear, 2,070 pieces of machetes concealed in 69 cartons and 1,790 pieces of jack knives.
The Customs boss disclosed that the duty paid value for all the seized items, including the vehicles, is put at N165,979,500, adding that despite the activities of smugglers within the command, it has been able to realise N22.6 million as revenue in November alone.
“This amount was realised from Demand Notices (DN) issued for short payment. You can imagine that the Federal Government would have lost this amount if my officers did not keep an eagle eye on the activities of smugglers within our Area of Responsibility (AOR).”
He, nonetheless, said that the command was able to achieve all the successes because of the improved capacity and logistics received from the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (retd) and his management team.
Although he said Niger/Kogi Area Command is one of the largest command in the Nigeria Customs Service in terms of land mass, making it difficult to police it adequately, “we will not relent in our efforts to salvage the command and by extension, the entire country from harmful items finding its way into the country through the efforts of dare devils “smugglers’.
“We have discovered some illegal routes intended to be used by smugglers within the command. I make bold to say that our officers are fully ready to engage them”, adding that “my advice to them is that they should stop all illegitimate businesses because we are going to hit them hard”.