Five officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) have been dismissed from service for their alleged involvement in illegal importation of firearms into the country.
At the time of their arrest all five officers were attached to the Lagos area.
Operatives of the Nigeria Customs service in January 2017 intercepted a 20-feet container load of arms. When it was searched, a total of 661 automatic pump action rifles, which were carefully concealed behind steal doors, were recovered.
Eight persons including five officers of the service, the clearing agent, the driver of the truck and his conductor were arrested.
Soon after the seizure was made, the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Hameed Ali, ordered a full scale investigation into the circumstance surrounding the illegal importation.
Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Customs Service, Joseph Attah, who made this disclosure, said that the five officers were dismissed at the end of the trial.
Attah, a Deputy Comptroller of Customs, said that after their dismissal, the five officers and their accomplices were arraigned in an open court.
Attah who gave detailed account of the achievement of the service in the last one year, said that the service raked in a total sum of N1.1 trillion in 2017.
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