Do you support Customs’ refusal to implement the Executive Order on Ease of Doing Business at the port? 

Their refusal to implement the Executive Order is to safeguard the port.I feel the Executive Order may not work as planned, unless the government addresses some of the major challenges facing the port. Customs have to do their job beyond ease of doing business to safeguard lives and properties because 70 to 80 percent of what comes into the country comes under false declaration and that is why they find it difficult to effectively execute Ease of Doing Business.

Yes because the Executive Order given by the then Acting President would suffer a serious setback without fixing the deplorable roads leading to the ports. The roads that lead to nation’s seaports in Lagos, Warri to mention a few have become virtually impassable.These port access roads have not attracted the attention of the government in the last four years. The state of the roads leading to Apapa and Tin-Can Island port in Lagos are so bad that people call it shame of a nation. Also, containers fall off trucks as a result of the poor state of the port access roads and in the process, vehicles are damaged and innocent lives lost.Going by the magnitude of the income that these ports are generating daily, many stakeholders expressed dismay that the Buhari’s administration is yet to give the port access roads the desired attention. I feel this is part of the reason why Customs is not implementing the Executive Order.

Customs do not have the right to go against the Executive Order by the government. For government to make it mandatory there is a change the ease of doing business will make at the port. They don’t just bring up a law without a reason and I believe the faster Customs start implementing this, the better for them and a positive change for the country at large.

Matthew Iwuchukwu

No, I do not support it because it is a must for Customs to obey Executive Order but they must be alert at all times to prevent illegality going on at the port. Remember this government relies on revenue to make things right in the country and the port is an avenue where much come from which can improve the economy of the country.

I am fully in support of Customs not implementing the Executive Order because majorly the scanners at the port are bad and that is why they have to go through a lot in screening goods that comes into the port that is why the issue of the rifles that were ceased happened. If we had functional scanners, it would have detected it before coming out of the port. Customs have to do their job rightly and put in their best which is why they need to see that things fall in place before they can implement the Executive Order.

Of course, I can’t support Custom’s refusal to implement the executive order on Ease of doing business in our port. However, in addition to that, the orientation of most of our Federal Government uniform personnel at our border posts need to be realigned with the realities of the current socio-economic requirements of the global village. For instance, if you are departing from most standard foreign airports from abroad, their port personnel over there will always encourage you to easily go out of their country with whatever consumable items you bought from their country and even set up beautiful duty-free shops for you to buy more on your way to the aircraft. This is because they see each item you buy to be contributing to the GDP and/or socioeconomic well-being and development of their nation. Here in Nigeria, it is the exact opposite. Apart from the fact that most duty-free shops in our port areas are non-existent or unattractive due to our various unfriendly policies. For instance, travellers are harassed for buying and traveling with most of our locally-made items on several flimsy excuses given by our port personnel. It is either they beg you for money or look for some funny excuses to play on your psychology. How will our local economy grow with this attitude? It is rather unfortunate.