By Stephen Ubanna
Barely three months in the saddle as the Area Controller of the Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, Apapa Command, Compt. Babatunde Olomu, who has continued to perfect ways of improving the Command revenue collection which was said to have hit over a trillion naira over the last six months.
The Apapa Area Controller was said to have stopped processing of documentations at the exit gate by importers with their agents without Frank Oyeka, another DC, overseeing the exit gate sighting a video clip of the physical examination of the Container by the relevant security agencies including the Customs Intelligence Unit, CIU and Department of State Services, DSS, personnel at APM, terminal, to make assurance doubly sure.
The Customs Comptroller who appears to have beamed his searchlight on the importers with their agents may have been worried by the reports making the rounds of alleged connivance between the some staff of the Valuation unit and the high profile agents to take delivery off their clients’ cargoes without proper examination to ensure that the appropriate duties are paid for the imported cargoes.
Informed sources told The Value News that there have been cases over the years in which different importers who were aid to have manifested in their Singled Digit, SGD, Form of carrying the same type of goods in their ‘’20ft or 40ft Container from the Asian country of China, were but were said to have been valued differently. This clearly shows that the Command may have lost billions of naira over the years. One of the importers was aid to have paid a little above N5 million as duty while the most recent incident, the importer through his agent had been made to pay N4.8 million as duty. DC. Oyeka, officer – inchage of the Apap exit gate, may not have allowed the agent to delivery of the importer’s cargo as he was said to have recommended a Debit Note, DN, to the Area Controller to be issued to the importer through the agent to recover the lost revenue.
At present, the Customs Deputy Comptroller who, is leaving no stone upturned to ensure that the importers with their agents comply with the Command new policy of processing their documents at the gate to facilitate the release of their cargoes appears to be making a headway.
This is because the agents are now taking serious taking video clip of their examined Containers at APM terminal, to avoid playing into the hands of DC. Oyeka, who will not hesitate to recommend DN, for the guilty agent’s importer to the Area Controller for approval.
A source confirmed that some of the agents who had failed to provide the video clips of their clients’ imported cargoes examined at the APM terminal, had been asked by the Customs Deputy Comptroller, at the Apap port exit gate who is very thorough with his job to go back and do the right thing before representing their documents for scrutiny and signing.
Note that the presentation of video clips by the agents to show that their clients Containerised cargoes have been examine is not a guarantee that that the cargo must exit the port. This is because there are several questions which ought to be answered by the agent on the manifested cargo by the importer on his or her SGD, Form as declared by the agent to process the document at the Command CPC.
There are indications that som high profile agents who were said to have tried to influence DC. Oyeka, who shuttles between the exit gate and the CPC, to get some information on some suspected importers’ documents cleared to bend the rule were have aid to been disappointed. The Customs Deputy Comptroller, who many believe has the backing of the Area Controller, to do what he is doing at the exit gate was said to have stood his ground without Compromise.
An agent who spoke to The Value News at the Apapa Command CPC, where he has gone to process his client’s import document had said that they have never had it so tough in taking delivery of their cargo at the exit gate before nowl and wondered why Compt. Olomu, the current Area Controller of the Apapa Command had rolled out the new rule being implemented at the port exit gate by DC. oyeka. The agent was emphatic:’’ it is no more business as usual’’.
There are indications that Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, MFR, the Customs Comptroller General, who believes in excellence, may have thrown his weight on the Apapa Command Area Controller to continue doing his good job at the Apapa port exit gate that have made the importers with heir agents to be more compliant in making their declarations and pay the appropriate of duties without cutting corners as obtained in the past.
Note that DC. Nwanze, led enforcement unit of the Apapa Command was said to have also benefited from Compt. Olomu’s, new security measures aimed at blocking the Command areas of revenue leakage. The interception, detention and subsequent seizure on Wednesday, July 17, 2024, of two ‘’40ft’’ Container carrying 12,000 pieces of matchet and another two ‘’40ft’’Container carrying 4,129 packages of foreign poultry products including one other ‘’40ft’’ Container carrying 368 jumbo bales of used clothing and an additional one ‘’0ft’’ Container carrying expired pharmaceutical products bear eloquent testimony to the fact the Area Controllers new measures are yielding results.
It might interest those who wants to know what is happening at the Apapa exit gate and enforcement unit to note that the Duty Paid Value, DPV, of the seized months on July 17, 202, alone was a whopping N292,244,357.00 and the seizures continues.
The Apa Command, who could not hide his feelings had repeatedly said that this type of fraudulent importation is against schedule 3 of the revised Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, import Prohibition list of the COMMO External Tariff, CET, and violates section 23 of NCS ACT, 2023, signed into Law by former President President Muhammadu Buhari, in April, 2023.
Both for the sanity that had been restored at the Apapa Command exit gate over the last three months, the Containers may have exited port and fall into the hands of FOU, Zone A, officers on the road. This may have informed why the Customs Comptroller could go to sleep with his two eyes closed without fear that the Federal Operations Unit, FOU, Zone A, Ikeja, Lagos, under the close watch of Compt. Kola Oladeji, whose officers are stationed at strategic locations between mile II and the port vicinity would stop any Container released at the premier port and rerouted to the Ikeja premises for another round of physical examination.
Compt. Oladeji, the FOU, Zone A, helmsman had repeatedly said that the Customs Commands in seaports in Lagos, are yet to fully tackle the inadequacies at the bonded terminals, describing them as the problem of the service.
He had cited an instance of one rerouted Container along the Lagos road to the Command premises for examination which had been released from one of the bonded terminals, superintended by the Tincan Island Command, under the close watch of Compt. Dera Nnandi.
The goods loaded in the Container was said to have been manifested in the SGD, Form as carrying Agricultural products from the Asian country of China to Nigeria.
The FOU, Zone A, Area Controller, had confirmed that when it was finally reexamined in the presence of the importers’ agent at the Command premises, what were found to have been loaded into the Container were T-Shirts and other shirts.
This is why the Customs Area Controllers overseeing the various bonded terminals in different parts of Lagos must make their Deputy Controllers in-charge of the bonded terminal to understudy DC. Oyeka, to know how he was able to achieve sanity at the Apapa exit gate to repeat same at their respective terminals in order to give the FOU, Zone A, officers, stationed on the road in different parts off Lagos little or no job to do.
.
