From Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
Coordinator, Borders Drill Sector 4 of the Nigerian Customs Service(NCS), Northwest axis, Comptroller Kola Oladeji has disclosed that goods worth N42,429,534.63 were intercepted at various locations in Kebbi State.
Oladeji, at a Press conference at the NCS Headquarters, Birnin Kebbi,said that a driver of a truck was arrested along with smuggled packaging items and has been granted bail according to his fundamental human rights.
He listed the items intercepted which included :972,500 of packaging materials worth N32,088,037.31; 16 bales of used clothes, worth N5,284,700.00; 95 cartons of foreign noddles worth N1,192,360.44 and 65 Jerry cans of vegetable oil worth N3, 864,436.88.
“The total Duty Paid Value of the seized items is N42,429,534.63. You can see that this is a lot of money. They invested in the wrong businesses, wrong places. This is the reward for being saboteurs of the nation’s economy. This is the reward for being a smuggler.
“This money now, they would never recover it again because we are seizing them which includes the conveyance. This is in accordance with the Customs Act of 2023 section 2.
“I will advise smugglers to toe a new path of business because NCS is always ready to assist any Nigerian who is involved in a legitimate business. It is our mandate to facilitate legitimate businesses for the growth of our economy.
“Our people should endeavour to assist the Government by doing legitimate businesses”.
Oladeji also affirmed that the borders that still remained closed was a decision of ECOWAS, not only Nigeria’s Government decision, stressed that there would not be any movement of goods and services through borders under closure.
According to him, “ I am using this opportunity to inform our people that the borders still remain closed and the joint patrol, of which I am the Co-ordinator, have been given the mandate to ensure that there is total compliance of the borders closure.
“If we don’t carry our food to other countries,we are going to have sufficient food. But some of our people are producing local rice and they are smuggling it out to other Countries and we are still hungry in this country. If we discover anybody smuggling such food, we shall arrest and impound the goods”.
He added that the smugglers have adopted another style by putting foreign goods inside made in Nigeria cartons in order to deceived the Customs officers.
Oladeji noted that some of the items impounded were from Yauri waterside,Bani in Bunza, Ambursa and Bagudo waterside which were seized between January and February 2024, stressed that the smugglers were using horses, motorcycles to conveying the items from various locations where they were deposited to outside the country.