Customs Wants More Personnel To Police Ogun Porous Borders With Benin Republic
Nigeria Customs Service says it requires more personnel to effectively stop smugglers operating across Nigeria’s border with Benin Republic, in Ogun State.
The Comptroller of the State Customs Command, Bamidele Makinde said policing the Ogun State’s borders with Benin Republic was difficult, because they were very porous.
The Comptroller, speaking at a news conference, at the Idiroko custom post, said 700 officers in the state’s command are inadequate, to effectively patrol the several illegal routes being used by the smugglers in the state.
He explained that the availability of more personnel would enable the command to effectively contain the smuggled goods in and out of the country through the border communities in the state.
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The controller asks youths and families in Ogun west, to go into rice farming which he described as a hidden wealth.
He said the command between January and this month, was able to generate revenue totaling N93.3 million, from import duty, auctioning of seized motor spirits and several vehicles from smugglers.
Bamidele also puts the cumulative duty value of items seized from smugglers during the period, at N1.3 billion.
According to him, the seized items, included 173,975 litres of petrol, over 5,000 pieces of used tyres, 390 bales of used clothes, 61 units of vehicles, 107 sacks and 1,545 wraps of Indian hemp.
Others seized items are 167 cartons 100 by 100ml codeine syrup, 27 cartons of 200 by 100ml of codeine syrup and 22,526 bags of 50 kilogramme parboiled rice.
