The Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Operations Unit, Ikeja, has announced that it plans to use intelligence-driven operations to end smuggling in Nigeria.
This is coming as the unit also cautioned importers and their clearing agents against false declarations.
Speaking while he received members of the Shipping Correspondents Association of Nigeria in Ikeja, Lagos, the Customs Area Controller in charge of the unit, Mohammed Shuaibu, vowed to use his wealth of experience to overcome the unit’s challenges and implement intelligence-driven operations, instead of stopping containers regularly on the highways.
According to him, even though the NCS is originally an anti-smuggling command, it also aids trade. He reiterated NCS’s readiness to partner with key stakeholders to ensure that trade is always as seamless as possible.
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“In terms of our anti-smuggling activities, very soon we are going to showcase some of our seizures and the suspects to the public. I do intelligence-driven operations.
What we are trying to do is to ensure that we don’t just stop any kind of containers, even those checking points you see our officers roving around, we would want to eradicate that, while we will be doing intelligence-driven operations.
So, at any point in time, you will see that our officers will stop you and then remove those illegal items that are supposed to be extracted from your consignment,” he said.
Mohammed appealed to importers and their clearing agents to make sure they are truthful with their declarations to ensure constant ease of doing business.
He then vowed to build on the success achieved by past area controllers by doing his bit to improve on past ideas that are currently working.
Confirming that the Nigeria Customs Service is always open to partnering with sister agencies, he announced that one of such collaborations was recently done with the Nigerian Army, and it is yielding good fruits.
“If you see such officers coming out, it is because of the insincerity of the declarants or the importers. Now, we are going to be doing intelligence-driven operations, so if you see them stationed at a strategic location, it is because of the information at our disposal that we are tracking,” he added.
