The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has donated five Nissan frontier brands of vehicles to the Republic of Benin Customs as its contribution to aid the fight against cross border smuggling and other crimes.
Comptroller General of the NCS, Dikko Abdullahi stated this at Seme border on Thursday while handing over the utility vehicles to Benin Customs Director General, Colonel Charles Sezan.
Dikko, who was represented by the Area Controller, Seme Command, Garba Ndalati, said to curb international smuggling, robust logistics support was necessary, hence the donation of the vehicles.
He said both nations’ Customs enjoy a robust working relationship, stressing that the vehicles will make their joint operations easier.
“The Nigeria Customs Service and the Customs Administration of Republic of Benin have been working closely on several fronts and that’s the way to go. The vehicles are being given in furtherance to the communiqué of the meeting of Director-Generals of Customs of proximate countries of Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria held at Abuja on Wednesday, March 26, 2014 and a recent dialogue between the heads of Customs Administration of Nigeria and Benin on July 20, 2015 in Abuja.
“Today, another milestone is to be recorded in our timeline. This is to surmount the challenges encountered by our partners in progress, the Benin Customs, in carrying out cross border relation. This heralds a new era of continuous relationship into other areas of capacity building for the officers’ cadre and paving way for better management of our processes, especially as regards the synergy of the projected interconnectivity of Customs systems between the two administrations.
“In our quest to drastically reduce the smuggling of vehicles into the country without following the due Customs process of clearing at the border station and also complaints of our sister-country’s Customs Administration over perceived constraints in escorting goods to the border, the Comptroller General of Customs, in his characteristic magnanimity, has lived up to his earlier pledge of assisting in whatever capacity to boost trade across our borders.
By this gesture, the capacity and capability of the officers and men of the Benin Customs will certainly be enhanced,” he said.
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