By Glintsightv reporter
At about 3pm today, 13 September, 2020 in a village called Orita Araromi around Sokoto road, Atan, ota Ogun state, the Nigerian customs officer ran after a bike smuggler and waisted five bullets over four bags of rice.
One of the community youth known as Yomi was hit at foot by these strange bullets release amidst the crowd by these hungry officers.
It was amazing as customs officers brought out charms, swindled with incantation pronouncement.
The questions are, how did the smuggler by pass or enter without check? Is it not those who cannot afford settlement that are victims? Why are they chasing them into the community with guns without caring about the lives of people that resides there?
The simple truth is that, Our borders are porous, and custom officers are incompetent said one of the villagers who acclaimed that the officers only favoured the rich smugglers who have all the money to settle officers in advance and smuggle trailers of contrabound goods into this country with ease which is causing more avoke and militating against the growth of this country.
Do we have what it takes to stop smuggling? The border closure since October 28, 2019 is a big headache, covid 19 pandemic lockdown crippled a lot of businesses and the post lockdown policy of fuel increase from N125 to N162 along side with the electricity tariff hike in multiple of three now worsen the situation as many Nigerians now live in penury.
To combat smuggling, see Hong Kong as an example.
They uses profiling for all goods vehicles and private cars crossing the border. Detailed inspections are only carried out on high-risk vehicles. X-ray scanners are used to detect concealed compartments of vehicles. But all this technology is of little help without a professional and incorruptible customs officials cadre, which Nigeria lacks.
Anyone who has travelled through Nigerian land borders or lived around the border coast would be perplexed by how unprofessional the Nigerian officials are.
Few years ago when I travelled in a bus from owode to Lagos, we were stopped at so many points between Atan and Oju ore. After a brief inspection of the bus, customs officials accused the driver of transporting contraband goods.
The same bus had been inspected a few hours earlier at Ajibawo, Atan and baba ode by customs officers on our way from owode, who found no contraband.
Instead of impounding the contraband, the officers instead asked the driver for settlement.
Lo and behold, because, the “settlement” offered by the driver was not sufficient, and the bus was not allowed to proceed to Lagos.
While waiting for alternative transport, I saw many goods-laden lorries pass through the point un-inspected by the customs officials. I was dazed and perplex. I was later informed by people around that the lorry owners had “settled” the customs officials in advance.
There are many illegal paths through which smuggled goods can be transported. No travel documents are required on these routes and there are no checks.
Without addressing the problems of an inept customs and immigration machinery, as well as the porosity of Nigerian borders, one would only be treating the symptoms of the disease. The best solutions to these brouhaha might include the recruitment of a new cadre of customs officers, who would be trained to combat smuggling and corruption with proper monitoring through technology.
Otherwise, when the borders are eventually reopened, the government would be handing back to the same officials who have profited from smuggling for many years.
It was disclosed that most of these customs officers opened a warehouse for the siezed items in care of their wives which is absolutely bad.
Stop threatening, injures and killing of Innocent people with your biased smugglers hunting within the communities closer or near the border coast.' The community people affirms.
However, the fall in the supply of rice has led to food price inflation, which has impacted strongly on consumers. The closure has also led to shortages of materials imported from Nigeria in neighbouring countries and concerns about the consequences for the liberalisation of trade.
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