Customs intercepts elephant tusks, others in Adamawa

The Adamawa/Taraba Zonal Command of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has seized rare but outlawed items as well as more widely traded but contraband items across the two states constituting the command.

The seized items include elephant tusks and bufallo horns, dealings in which the authorities particularly abhor because of strict laws over the indicated animals.

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 on Tuesday, 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.

“The most recent is the seizure of 52 drums of petroleum product, with each drum containing 230 litres, totalling 11,960 litres,” the Customs zonal controller said.

Olumoh said the command had done better so far this year than the corresponding period for last year in revenue generation despite its challenges, saying that it had between January and July generated N105,945,138.44.

“This figure represents a 44.66% increase over the corresponding period of the previous year,” he explained, adding that the revenue target for the seven months of the year under review is N86.72 million.

He said his command achieved this despite a challenge of inadequate manpower and bad roads across the two states constituting the command, as well as low trade between Nigeria and Cameroon.

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,” the Customs zonal controller said, adding, however, that an ongoing recruitment into the Customs Service “will go a long way in boosting the staff strength of the command.”