The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Custom

  • Custom seizes petroleum products worth N181.6m in Adamawa 

    Custom seizes petroleum products worth N181.6m in Adamawa 

    The Nigeria Custom Service (NCS) under “Operation Whirlwind” has seized petroleum products worth N181.6 million in eight weeks between Nigeria and Cameroun borders.

    ACG Kolapo Oladeji, National Coordinator of Operation Whirlwind, disclosed this at a news conference on Thursday in Yola.

    He said that the seizures were made across various smuggling flashpoints of Adamawa in 55 different operations.

    “This operation is geared towards energy and food security to foster economic growth in line with the core mandates of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu.

    “In line with these mandates, the Operation Whirlwind Zone ‘D’ had repositioned all its machineries across the area of its responsibilities and ensuring that the border became airtight,” he said.

    He warned the smugglers to stop such acts and solicited the continued support and cooperation of all stakeholders for the socioeconomic development of the state.

    “We will ensure that the supply chains of these economic wreckers are truncated in accordance with enabling laws.

    Read Also: Customs’  Sports Secretary  credits CGC for driving excellence in premier league

    “This fight has no doubt helped in transforming the nation’s economy and strengthening security of our borders,” he said.

    He further said that the seized petroleum products would be auctioned to public.

    Mrs Abidemi Adewumi-Aluko, Assistant Legal Adviser of the Attorney General of the Federation, described the auction as a symbol of reclaiming resources to ensure that the benefit of petroleum remained in Nigeria.

    She said that such offences attracted life imprisonment because they threatened national security.

    She urged smugglers to stop such acts.

    (NAN) 

  • Customs impounds goods worth N9b, nabs 7

    The Comptroller General of Customs Strike Force Unit yesterday intercepted smuggled goods valued at over N9 billion.

    The agency also arrested seven notorious suspected smugglers.

    Speaking with reporters  in Lagos, the National Coordinator of the strike force, Abdullahi Kirawa, a Deputy Controller, said the seizures were made  through adequate intelligence gathering coupled with the efforts of the officers of the Zone ‘A’  Unit of the strike force led by Muhammed Shuaibu.

    The Central Intelligence Unit (CIU), of Customs, it was gathered, contributed immensely to the seizures and the arrest of the suspected smugglers.

    The items seized included over 8,000 bags of 50kg rice and Pangolin scales weighing 7, 560.9kg valued at over N8billion.

    Other seized items included 108 kegs of vegetable oil, container load of used clothing and 404 used imported tyres.

    The Strike Force also impounded a 40ft container load of Match Crackers of three and four sounds.

    Kirawa said the seizures were made following tip-offs from some patriotic Nigerians, adding that citizens’ engagement has helped to bring down smuggling activities to barest level in the country.

    He assured that the NCS would not relent in its efforts to end smuggling in the country for the good of the economy, to generate employment and promote national growth.

    ”Strike Force officers and men will not relent in their efforts of ensuring that die-hard smugglers are arrested and prosecuted to serve as deterrent to others. Those that are engaging in rice smuggling are enemies of our people and our country because we have the capacity and the capability to produce the rice we can eat as a country. Rice importation through the land borders is prohibited,” he said.

    Kirawa explained that the force set up by the Comptroller-General has the mandate to ensure effective suppression of smuggling to facilitate increase revenue to the Federal Government.

    He therefore urged Nigerians to ensure that they conduct their businesses within the ambit of the law.

  • ‘Senate lacks power to review President’s control on Custom CG appointment’

    A Benin-based legal practitioner and notary public, Gen. Idada Ikponmwen (rtd), has faulted the Senate for reviewing the Nigeria Custom Act.

    The review gave the Senate the power to approve the appointment of any future Comptroller-General of the Custom Service.

    Ikponmwen said the senators’ decision contravened Section 171 of the Nigeria Constitution, which vested the right solely on the President to approve the heads of extra-ministerial departments, which the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Custom Service falls in.

    Speaking in an interview with reporters in Benin City, Ikponmwen urged the senators to avoid undue interference into the rights of other arms of governments in the interest of the nation and adherence to the rule of separation of powers.

    His words: “Let us at this point make it clear that the positions of the head of custom by whatever names you call it happens to be relating to extra-ministerial department.

    “And the appointment to heads of extra-ministerial department under Section 171 of the Nigeria Constitution, is not one that require the approval of the Senate.

    “So, if exactly they now pass a law to say anybody that should be appointed to that position or to the board of that organisation must have their approval, it means that they are acting clearly in conflict  out of tune and at variance with the constitution, which is the supreme law and the grand norm of Nigeria.

    “The constitution in Section 171 talks about the appointment that can be made by the President of this country in his position as the head of government. He names ambassadors and those of the kinds in foreign nations. He names permanent secretaries, heads of extra-ministerial departments and personal staff of the president.

    “It is the President that nominates and appoints people into these positions. Under this same positions, it is clear that only those of the ambassadors require the approval of the Senate.

    “So, by implication, other positions named do not require senatorial approval. And that is the constitution.”

  • Senate summons Customs boss

    Senate summons Customs boss

    The Senate on Thursday  summoned Customs Comptroller  General, Col. Hammed Ali over flouting of its order on payment of duty on old vehicles.

    Col. Ali is to appear before the senate wearing Customs uniform on Wednesday, March 15th

  • Custom, transport owners may clash over tariff

    Custom, transport owners may clash over tariff

    The Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) has vowed to resist any further attempt to impound their registered vehicles with the guise of no customs duty by men of the Nigerian Customs Services (NCS).

    Speaking with The Nation in Abuja, the association’s National President, Alhaji Shehu Isiwele Musa noted that Customs personnel have been stopping and apprehending vehicles from his members on the highways even after the Vehicle Inspectorate Office (VIO) have duly registered the vehicles.

    He, however, raised some questions about the propriety of impounding the same vehicles that ordinarily passed through all customs borders in the first place.

    He described the act as part of the corrupt practices that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration must eradicate.

    The RTEAN boss however advised that the NCS could partner with the VIO to ask the latter to insist that vehicle owners produce their customs duty before registration.

    “That is why I’m asking when the cars passed the borders where was customs? The vehicles are in the markets why not go to the dealers to ask them to get the duty before selling them?

    “Then they leave those ones to embarrass our boys who at times even buy on hire purchase. They have no money to buy cars so they buy hire purchase so that they will be working and pay for it. Unfortunately, Customs will now impound it. So, we want the government to look into this and put a stop to it.”

    As part of his agenda for the new government, Musa advised the administration to reintroduce tollgates for revenue generation, especially now that oil revenue is declining.

    He also suggested that the gates must have automatic vending machines as measures for guarding against diversion of the proceeds into private pocket.

    According to him, government could spend the proceeds on road construction and rehabilitation instead of shopping for funds to fix them.

    He tasked the government on building highway motor parks where tired drivers could stop to pass a night and freshen up before proceeding on his journey to avoid accident from exhaustion.

    He described weighbridge as “a scale that every vehicle must climb before proceeding to load and after loading come for the paper so that when you reach another 50kilometer you also climb the scale. This is to prevent a driver from carrying additional or excess luggage that could burst the vehicles tyres on the way.”

  • Smugglers attack journalist inside Custom’s office

    Smugglers attack journalist inside Custom’s office

    The Executive Director and Chairman, Editorial Board of Badagry Prime, a news magazine, Otunba Yomi Olomofe has narrated his ordeal in the hands of smugglers around the Seme border area of Badagry, while appealing to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to help secure his life and that of his family.

    Olomofe, who is also the immediate past president of the Rotary Club of Ajara, spoke with newsmen yesterday, from his hospital bed, where he is recuperating.

    He said the incident occurred last Thursday in the presence of Customs officers within the premises of the Seme Command.

    Narrating how he narrowly escaped death, Olomofe said he was in company of another journalist colleague during a visit to the command, when some smugglers, who claimed journalists have been writing negative stories about them, pounced on him, beating him to stupor.

    He noted that he suspected a set-up because he was at the Seme Command on the invitation of the authority of the Service.

    “I wonder how anybody could have been waiting for me there. How do they know that I will be there.

    “They were beating me and they were threatening to kill any journalist that writes any story about them.

    “I was there with the correspondent of Tide Newspaper, if not for a friend from Rotary Club that came to take me away, I would have been dead, because I was left there almost lifeless.

    “This happened within the Customs premises and I don’t know what they might do again. My life is not safe and that is why I am appealing to the police to come to my rescue.

    “I am fully resident in Badagry, my familly lives with me. I have my parents, wife and children in Badagry.

    “These hoodlums are not unknown. They are known to everybody, but they are above the law. They even told me that they have killed many people and nothing happened,” Olomofe lamented.

  • Alaafin advises youths on custom, tradition

    Alaafin advises youths on custom, tradition

    THE Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi 111, has advised youth not to ensure that they remain firmly rooted to their tradition and custom. He stated this at a ceremony in memory of a late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Siyanbola Onikepe Ladigbolu, who reigned between January 15th 1911 and December 19th 1944.

    Oba Adeyemi also noted that one of the ways of preserving culture is to continue to research into the lifetimes and activities of our fore-bearers. He said a nation or tribe without customs is as good as a horde of gorillas ravaging  the deep forests.

    “It is true that modernisation has bombarded our tradition with various vices, but like an ancient fortress built to withstand fierce military onslaught, our traditions and customs have remained the pivot on which rests the dignity of the black man.

    If tradition is scrutinised under a historical microscope, it will be seen quite clearly that modernisation is an off-shoot of tradition and as the taproot that sustains modernisation, any attempt to destroy tradition is the surest way to ruin modernisation,” Alaafin said.

    Extolling the virtues of the late Alaafin Ladigbolu, Oba Adeyemi said the monarch’s reign was epochal as he recorded many outstanding successes. According to him, during the First World War, the late monarch gave strong support to the recruitment drive of the British armed forces.

    As such, several hundreds of recruits from Oyo and its environs enlisted in the army. He [late Oba Ladigbolu] also supplied food, men, and materials to the allied forces during the First World War, 1914-1918.

    “Following the German surrender in December 1918, the lae Alaafin Ladigbolu was honoured in Oyo palace by the British colonialists in Januuary 1920,’’ Alaafin recollected.

    Oba Adeyemi said the road and the railway initiated by the late Alaafin gave impetus to trade within the kingdom, adding that as a result, rubber, cotton and cocoa were introduced to Yoruba land and Oyo province got her share of the benefits.

    He noted that St. Andrews College that was inaugurated in 1896, had blossomed and is still reckoned with within and outside the region.

  • Customs seize 15,000 bags of rice in Oyo

    The Osun/Oyo Area Command has seized a total of 15,490 bags of rice from smugglers in the last on year, it was disclosed Thursday.

    Of the total, 481 bags of rice smuggled into the country through Iseyin/Saki route in Oyo State were seized on Wednesday.

    The rice, packed in 50 kilogramme bags, were being transported in nine buses when they were intercepted by customs officers on patrol along the route in Wednesday.

    A statement by the Comptroller of the Area Command, Mr R. Oteri, explained that the duty paid value on the seized rice is N6 million.

    Oteri disclosed that the command has seized a total of 15,490 bags of rice with a duty paid value   of approximately N173 million within the last one year.

    He described Tuesday’s seizure as “another remarkable feat to which gives credence to our determined resolve to make Oyo and Osun states a no-hiding place for unpatriotic Nigerians who engage in this illicit business of smuggling.”

    He added that the seizures will also disprove claim that the Nigerian Customs Service is paying lip service to curbing the menace of rice smuggling through the borders.

    He warned smugglers to desist from the trade, stressing that the command would not relent in its quest to make the states smuggling-free.