The anti-smuggling efforts of the Ogun State Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) last year netted 1,084 seizures, with duty paid value (DPV) of N694,087,462.00
“These seizures include, vehicles, rice, frozen poultry products, second hand shoes and clothes, textile materials, PMS (Fuel), Cannabis sativa (Indian hemp), vegetable oil and a spectacular seizure of Bulldozer Excavator just made a couple of days ago,” the Customs Area Controller (CAC), Comptroller Ade Dosunmu, said penultimate Thursday, while briefing journalists on the activities of the Command.
Dosumu said: “How can anyone imagine that he can smuggle within the frontiers of this border a bulldozer, a caterpillar on a truck train into this country.”
He went on: “Sometimes, you wonder how economic saboteurs n the country think that they can just smuggle anything into the country. This goes to tell you that sometimes, what we deal with actually goes outside the ordinary to do with the impossible.”
Dosunmu said: “Since the 5th of September 2012, I assumed office as the Area Controller of this Command, I was able to connect and partner with the traditional institutions, youth and community leaders of the borderline communities. These relations have been so well-managed that they have paid off. The incidences of attacks on officers by smugglers and youths from these communities have drastically reduced, because youths of these communities have become informants to our operation officers. This has helped to boost our revenue collection occasioned by the intensified anti-smuggling campaign.”
The command, according to him, posted the sum of N5,316,329,645.02, as against the N3,677,214,589.47 revenue recorded in 2011.
The CAC noted that the Command’s 2011 revenue collection is a cumulative difference of N1.7billion, compared to the amount recorded in 2012.
“In the month of January, 2013 alone, the Command had a record revenue collection of N568,371,344.48, as against N381,753,378.66 recorded in the same period in 2012. This is remarkable as this mark of revenue collection has never been attained in the Command,” he said.
On welfare, the CAC disclosed that his administration has established an X-Ray machine in the Customs Clinic at Idiroko , with the clinic, the Customs Secondary and Primary schools, as well as the Junior and Senior Officers’ Mess and the Armoury having all been renovated and painted.
“Under my administration, I have created over an acre of land for all imported cars landed from across the border with Benin for duty payment,”
Noting the hazards of the Customs operations, Dosumu said: “In the course of our operations we have had some of our officers wounded in the interdiction of smuggling by smugglers. But that has not dampened our spirit to confront the smugglers and do the job as mandated by Customs law.”
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.
