The Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Operations Unit, Zone A Ikeja, has said that eight officers were attacked and five died between September 2021 and April 2024.
The outgoing Customs Area Controller in charge of the unit, Hussein Ejibunnu, disclosed that during the handover ceremony at the command recently.
The management of the NCS recently announced a reshuffling of some area controllers.
Ejibunnu added that the command, within the period under review, intercepted 222,285 bags of foreign parboiled rice, each 50kg, equivalent to 370 trailer loads.
He said that the command made 3,189 seizures worth N35.9bn within the period under review.
Ejibunnu added that 386 suspects were arrested in connection with some of the seizures, while 22 people were convicted for different customs offences.
“Other seizures include 1,140,864 litres of premium motor spirit equivalent to 33 tankers; 16,432.30kg of Indian hemp; 26,303 pieces of used pneumatic tyres; 11,175 bales of used clothes; 751 live 70mm cartridges, etc.
“12,912 cartons of foreign frozen poultry products; 5,033 pieces of donkey skin; 450 x 106kg drums of carbide; 233 cartons x 225mg of tramadol; 7,640 cartons of expired and unapproved drugs; 303 units of foreign used vehicles; and 104 Haojue motorcycles,” he said.
The CAC added that the unit recovered N2.2bn within the period under review through the issuance of demand notices.
He noted that under his watch, the unit improved on suppression of smuggling by making more seizures, and the arrest of suspects served as a deterrent to intending smugglers.
Ejibunnu reaffirmed that the unit had improved trade facilitation by offering escorts for goods on the fast track for compliant traders and that it had recorded increased revenue recovery through thorough documentary checks and the issuance of demand notices on goods found to have been underpaid.
The outgoing controller stated that the journey was challenging, saying, “A part of the challenges encountered when I assumed duty newly was the continued rate of suspected smugglers’ attacks on officers while on duty.”
According to Ejibunnu, to mitigate such levels of attacks, the unit embarked on sensitisation programmes and courtesy visits to traditional rulers of border communities, which yielded a drastic reduction in the levels of deadly confrontations and attacks.
“Let me use this medium to express my profound gratitude to compliant traders, importers, and agents for being patriotic and sincere in their declarations, and for being compliant with the extant customs procedures,” he noted.
In his acceptance speech, the new controller, Kola Oladeji, promised to run an open-door administration to suppress smuggling.
Oladeji expressed happiness to be posted in a place where about 70 per cent of the officers had served with him previously.
“Please, don’t take my heart to be as hard as my face; I need the support and cooperation of everybody and I shall run an open door policy and will perform without fear or favour,” he asserted.
Headquartered in Yaba, Lagos, the Federal Operations Unit, Zona A, is part of the four zones of the service, which comprise all the customs commands in Lagos, Ogun, Osun/Oyo, and Ondo/Ekiti among others.
