The Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, Ikeja, says smuggling of products, especially rice, is affecting the economy and fuelling the forex crisis.
The Customs Area Comptroller in charge of the FOU A, Kola Oladeji, disclosed this while showcasing some seized bags of foreign parboiled rice to journalists at the command on Monday.
Oladeji, who didn’t mention the quantity and value of the seizures, said the goods were intercepted in the last 24 hours within the South West borders.
He disclosed that the officers were to conduct physical counting to know the exact number and value of the bags of rice after the press briefing.
“These are just activities of the last 24 hours that we have recorded the searches. It is affecting our economy. It is affecting the stability of the naira to the dollar. We have local production of rice,” the CAC lamented.
According to him, there is a need to stop rice smuggling to allow local rice millers to succeed.
“Smugglers don’t pay tax; they don’t pay anything, and all these prohibited items are not meant for this country,” he said.
He explained that they had been tracking the contrabands for some time before finally intercepting them on Monday.
“This is not a detailed press briefing. As you are aware, we have just arrived here with some of these seized bags of foreign parboiled rice. We succeeded in intercepting them at border areas in the state and the South-West region at large,” Oladeji said.
Giving details of the operation, Oladeji explained that the contrabands were packed in smaller cars, “but on sighting our men and officers, they took to their heels and dumped the cars.”
“But since our objective was to intercept those smuggled items, we did not bother about their means of convenience; we had to hire trucks and even used our operational vehicles to bring them down here,” he explained.
He said that in that singular operation, the unit intercepted nine lorries, six buses, and 11 elapsed vehicles carrying bags of rice.
“These vehicles were abandoned. Immediately we sighted them, they knew the game was up, so they had no choice but to run away with their car keys, and most of the vehicles were specially built. you may not be able to drive them except they are the ones,”
He mentioned that because of the vast land borders the country has with Benin Republic, some of the smuggled items do enter through bush paths.
Oladeji lauded the Nigerian Army for always assisting the Service when there is a need for that.
‘I want to seize this opportunity to thank some of our sister agencies that used to assist us because without them sometimes we might not succeed.
Like the Nigerian Army, they used to give us helping hands in securing the seizures,” Oladeji said.