Ogun Area 1 Customs Throws Jab at Detractors, Debunks Passage of Arms, Ammunition, Other Prohibitions •Says: In 8 Months, It seized 46,491 Bags of Rice, Arrest, Arraign 20 Smugglers
By Trek Africa Newspaper
The Ogun Area 1 Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), with Idiroko as its headquarters, has cautioned Nigerian youths, specifically students, against being used for whatever political gimmicks to cause citizens’ disaffection for the command.
The command, in its reaction to an online publication said to have emanated from a press conference “jointly addressed by one Mr. Damilola Simeon Kehinde, said to be the Chairman of NANS JCC and one Mr. Ogunrombi Gbemileke, said to be National President of NAOSS, and one other, which was published by an online medium (name withheld) on Thursday, 26th August, 2021”, alleging arms and ammunition importation through Ogun State land border, the command said there had never been a time when such prohibited items ever beat his operatives.
In a press statement issued on Friday, August 27, 2021, the command’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), DSC Hammed Bukoye Oloyede, described the allegation as “baseless, unfounded, mischievous, dangerously misleading and aimed at causing distraction to our operations and security architecture in Ogun State and the country and, as such, should be disregarded. We are focused in our anti-smuggling duties and remain resolute to continue with our onslaught on these enemies of the state”.
According to the command’s spokesman, “In as much as the Command does not want to join issues with the so-called students, their sponsors and collaborators, we want to advise them to focus and concentrate on their studies and school activities, so that they graduate in record time and be better citizens tomorrow, instead of offering and allowing themselves to be used as tools for blackmail. The Service wishes to implore them to channel their energy towards educating their fellow members in various communities on dangers inherent in smuggling activities”.
Stressing that the command had so fortified the numerous illegal routes through which contrabands were hitherto smuggled into the country with aggressive patrols, so much so that, it had stepped up its anti-smuggling operations in the state, to checkmate the nefarious activities of economic saboteurs,
He stated that there was no way arms and ammunition would successfully be smuggled into the country through Ogun State, adding that it would not be allowed to be smuggled in whatever form.
“Other allegation of smuggling activities taking place during the daytime is only in the imagination of the fabricator of that story. The tightened security architecture in the state today by Customs and other Security Agencies will not permit Smuggling of Contrabands and other prohibited item at night time not to talk of during the day”, the PRO said.
On the general assessment of the command’s activities, Oloyede said: “It is on record that since the resumption of the present Area Controller (CC Peter Kolo), the record of our achievements in the Command in both areas of revenue generation and anti-smuggling activities are being given out to the press (media) on monthly basis, in order for the public to be informed of our activities.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Command recorded over One Thousand, five hundred seizures of various contrabands and prohibited items, ranging from foreign parboiled rice, foreign used vehicles, used shoes and clothings, Tomato Paste, Sativa (Marijuana), and petroleum products made for export since the beginning of the year. For instance seizures of 46,491 bags of foreign parboiled rice were made in the Command between the moths of January 2021 to August 2021. About 20 suspects are currently undergoing trial for various Smuggling offenses in the Federal High Court, Abeokuta, Ogun State.
“Oratorically, where were the authors of this malicious publication when officers and men of the Customs Service were being daily attacked with AK-47 rifles, locally produced guns, pistols and other dangerous weapons with charm by dare devil smugglers, who are their brothers and sisters, cousins and uncles in the state? In most of these attacks, officers are injured, killed and government property destroyed (vehicles and buildings set ablaze). What did they do and what did they say? These are the same elements and group that carried placards and demonstrated to Government House and State House of Assembly last year December, 2020 alleging incessant killings of their citizens by Customs, what a hypocrisy”, the statement concluded.
