Steve Agbota
The Adamawa/Taraba Zonal Command of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), has impounded elephant tusks, bufallo horns and other outlawed items in Adamawa and Taraba states.
According to the Adamawa/Taraba Zonal Controller of Customs, Comptroller Karmadeen Olumoh, who disclosed the seizures to newsmen at the Zonal headquarters of the Service in Yola, the seized items are prohibited by law. He said the command had also so far in the year seized 2,527 50kg bags of foreign parboiled rice, 12 motor vehicles, 22 motorcycles, and 240 bales of secondhand clothes, adding that the most recent was the seizure of 52 drums of petroleum products, each of which contained 230 litres, totalling 11,960 litres.
He hinted that the Command had done better so far in year 2019 than the corresponding period last year in revenue generation despite its challenges, stating that between January and July it recorded N105,945,138.44.
However, he said the figure represents a 44.66 per cent increase over the corresponding period of the previous year, adding that the target for the seven months of the year under review is N86.72 million.
Oluomh noted that the Command achieved the feat despite the challenge of inadequate manpower and bad roads across the two states constituting the Command, as well as low trade between Nigeria and Cameroon. He said Adamawa and Taraba states have extensive borderlines with Cameroon.
“Inadequate number of officers to patrol the vast borderline of the command remain a major obstacle, considering the fact that the command boasts of the most expansive in the country consisting Adamawa and Taraba states, he said