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Layi Ayiolanrewaju, Ilorin
DESPITE the ravaging Coronavirus pandemic affecting the nations of the world Nigeria inclusive, officers and men of the Joint Border Operations Drill (JBOD) Sector 3 covering the North Central states of Kwara, Niger, Kogi and Benue said it devised new anti-smuggling strategies to rake in N802m into the coffers of the Federal Government from various contraband goods it impounded from unscrupulous Nigerians.
Speaking with journalists in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, on the activities of the Sector over the weekend, the Coordinator, JBOD, Comptroller Mohammed Uba Garba, attributed the success of the operations to the efforts of officers and men of the Sector, adding that they have resolved to tirelessly work towards reducing the incidence of smuggling in their area of operations.
Garba warned that the fight against smuggling activities in the North Central axis would continue to receive sustained momentum that would lead to more seizures and enforcement of the Federal Government’s directives geared towards curtailing smuggling activities.
According to Garba “Within the last three weeks of March 2020, the Sector has intercepted several contraband goods worth millions of naira. They include 25 units of vehicles of various types, 1,437 bags of foreign rice of 50kg of which 430 bags were found concealed in bags of onions, maize, millet and beans with Duty Paid Value of N24.4m.
“Others are 494 tin tomatoes, 18 bales of second-hand clothing, 15 sacks of second-hand shoes. The above seizures were made around Jebba-Mokwa, Okuta, Alapa and Kotangora axis of the Sector with a Duty Paid Value of N98.3m.
“Since my assumption of duty here we have recorded 151 seizures consisting of 134 used vehicles, 14,576 bags of rice equivalent to 15 trailers, 303,609 litres of petroleum products, over 6,617 litres of AGO, 362 bales of textile materials, 11 illicit weapons, 129 motorcycles used to convey smuggled goods. The total Duty Paid Value (DPV) of the itemized seized goods is N802.5 million.”
