In a bid to protect the country’s economy, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) through its Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone A, has impounded dozens of foreign parboiled bags of rice smuggled into the country through the borderlines in Ogun State.
As gathered, the dozens of seized rice bags were brought into the country by the smugglers from the Benin Republic who were stopped by Customs officers deployed under the FOU Zone A along Nigeria’s borderline to save the country’s economy.
The Comptroller of FOU Zone A, Kola Oladeji, who disclosed this on Monday during a press briefing in Ikeja, Lagos State, added that the contraband goods were brought into the country with cars designed by the smugglers to ease their operations within the southwest.
Oladeji explained that the smugglers, on sighting the Customs officers, abandoned the vehicles, and ran into the bush to avoid the law enforcement agency’s arrest.
According to him, the smugglers abandoned their vehicles and left with their keys to prevent our officers from impounding the smuggled items. And when our officers realized this, in compliance with our strategy of not shooting at any smugglers, they hired trucks and used some of our patrol vehicles to convey the items here.
A breakdown of the vehicles used for conveying the seized bags of rice from the locations were nine trucks, six buses, and 11 patrol vehicles owned by Nigerian Customs.
He noted that the arrest was part of the FOU new operational strategy, Operation Swift Stage, which was designed to prevent the influx of smuggled goods.
“We have been on intelligence gathering for days and last night when we felt that we had gathered enough intelligence on this quantum of rice bags, we decided to strike and we succeeded in intercepting the smugglers.
“But on sighting our men, they ran away and took away the keys. Since our objective is to ensure that the items were impounded, we did not bother about their means of conveyance. We had to hire trucks and some of our operational vehicles to bring them down here.
“We cannot allow smuggling to thrive because it affects the country’s economy, especially the stability of the Naira. We have local production of rice and they are nutritious and we cannot allow the smugglers to bring in these prohibited goods into the country”.
Meanwhile, the Customs boss commended the Nigerian Army for the collaboration in going after the smugglers allegedly sabotaging the country’s economy.
