The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has stated that it would deploy the use of modern technology towards reducing the activities of smugglers across the country to the barest minimum.
The Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adeniyi, stated this on Monday in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, during his familiarisation tour of the Kwara Area Command.
According to the Comptroller-General, if the nefarious activities of these unscrupulous smugglers are left unchecked, the economic prosperity of the country would be undermined and jeopardised, adding that all the land borders would be properly manned to ensure sanity in all areas.
He lauded officers of the Kwara Area Command for their diligence, commitment and painstaking efforts in keeping the activities of smugglers under great check, noting that the Service’s operations within Kwara State and other parts of the country had yielded positive results.
The Comptroller-General, who disclosed that within January 2025 and now, a total of 53,000 litres of petrol with duty paid value of N53m were intercepted along Kwara North axis, added that a suspect identified as Nafiu Salami who was a driver of a vehicle conveying 162 Jerry cans of 25 litres of petroleum has been arrested.
The Customs boss attributed the rise in the smuggling of petrol to the low price of the commodity in the country, when compared with the price of the commodity in the neighbouring Benin Republic and Cameroon.
He, however, sounded a note of warning to those involved in smuggling activities to desist or face the full wrath of the law.
In his remarks, the Comptroller of Nigeria Customs Service, Kwara Area Command, Comptroller Faith Ojeifo, said the Command would ensure total fight against the activities of smugglers in the State, saying smuggling is an economic sabotage that requires collective efforts to terminate.
Comptroller Ojeifo urged the residents of border communities to support the Service with intelligence information on the activities of smugglers in their midst to enable it succeed in nipping the activities of these enemies of the country in the bud.