From Laide Raheem, Abeokuta
Operatives of the Nigeria Customs Service, Ogun Area 1 Command have seized 14 truck loads of 50Kg foreign parboiled rice and other contrabands with Duty Paid Value worth N1.2b.
The operatives who equally intercepted a petroleum tanker laden with 45,000 litres of adulterated diesel being imported into the country, also confiscated 23,400 pairs of footwear, 289 cartons of tomato paste, 1,100 packets of tramadol, as well as several sacks and wraps of weeds, suspected to be Cannabis Sativa.
Conducting newsmen round the seized smuggled items in Idiroko Border Post, the Customs Area Controller for Ogun 1 Command, Comptroller Bamidele Makinde, who described the items as “uncommon seizures under a month”, disclosed that the adulterated diesel product was intercepted along the Sagamu-Ijebu Ode Expressway.
While noting that the seizure was made between the month of May and 25th of June, 2022, Makinde informed the newsmen that the driver of the tanker absconded upon sighting the command’s operatives.
According to him, two trucks conveying 882 bags of the foreign parboiled rice were seized inside Abeokuta metropolis, while on transit.
Defending the seizure within the state capital, the Area Controller declared that his operatives acted under the Sections 46 and 169 of the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA), Cap “C45” of the Law of Federation of Nigeria to effect the seizures.
Lamenting the upsurge witnessed in smuggling activities in Ogun between May and June compared to the previous month when the border was freshly reopened, Makinde attributed the trend to the intensity of trading ahead of the forthcoming Eid-el-Kabir festival.
He disclosed that the command generated a total revenue of over N12.8m from auctions of the Premium Motor Spirit (P.M.S) intercepted at different exit points to the Republic of Benin during the anti-smuggling operations, adding that about 10, 973 litres of the seized petroleum products were disposed off in line with the extant laws.
The Controller, however, handed all the narcotics intercepted to the Controller of Narcotics, Archie-Abia Ibinabo, who led other officials of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) from the Idiroko Special Area Command to the NCS warehouse where the contrabands were being kept.