Armed officials of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), in the early hours of Wednesday, invaded Agip Market in the Agege area of Lagos State, burgled shops and looted property belonging to traders operating in the market.
The traders, while recounting their losses during a protest on Thursday, said property worth millions of naira were stolen by the officials who ransacked their shops after dislodging the security guards manning the premises.
During the protest which started around 9am, the traders, some of whom were seen weeping profusely as they lamented their losses, said the officials seized the mobile phones of their guards to prevent them from recording the incident or contacting traders and market leaders who were at home sleeping during the operation.
The traders were also seen carrying placards bearing inscriptions including “Asiwaju our father, please save our soul”, “Nigerian government, please intervene in our case” and “Customs broke my shop and made me a debtor overnight”, among others.
The yet to be identified Customs officials allegedly burgled and looted bags of rice among other goods in the shops.
A trader in Agip market, Aina Irawo, whose shop was affected, accused the Customs officials of stealing no fewer than 200 bags of rice from her shop.
“Have mercy on us. Customs officers came to burgle my shop. They carried 200 bags of rice yesterday (Wednesday). They also broke my safe and carted away N6 million. Have mercy on us. We are only trading at Agege, we didn’t go to the border,” she said.
Another trader in the market, Arike Olafathia, said, “We sell goods inside Agege. Customs officers do come at midnight to break our shops. When they came, they would seize the phones of our security guards. Around 2am on Wednesday, they came with about five Hilux vans and broke into three shops at Agip market in Agege. The security guards told us they were Customs officers. They did this after invading the Akerele market a few weeks ago and took about 250 bags of rice. This is debt. We can’t feed our children. It is too much and that is why we are protesting.”
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