By Lateef Adegbite
For years the Nigerian Police Force, NPF, Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration, NAFDAC, including the Nigerian Navy personnel, have competed with the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, in anti-smuggling operations.
There were even reported cases of sabotage as the Interventionist Units, Particular, the Federal Operations Unit, FOU, across the country patrol team officers scheduled operations are regularly divulged to the smugglers making it impossible for the service ‘’to impound contraband goods’’ that had been earmarked for seizure going by the available information at their disposal.
VIP smugglers may have known that they are in for trouble with the various strategies that had been adopted by the Interventionists Unites if they don’t act fast to safeguard their business. It was not surprising why they have penetrated the ranks of the security agencies including the Customs Commands to carry out their nefarious activities by booking in advance’’ to move with their smuggled vehicles loaded with bags of foreign rice of 50Kg each and other Contraband items including processed vegetable oil of 25 litres each at the dead of the night.
Given that the VIP, smugglers have the money to spend may have informed why they could easily drop the number of the vehicles carrying their smuggled items at various checkpoints to forestall the usual routine stop and search but given the express passage.
Border Analysts would want Nigerians to know that there is no way an FOU Zone A, Ogun I, Command or any other Interventionist Unit, across the country, Patrol team officers could know the exact route used by the smugglers to move their smuggled goods night if they are not working closely with the VIP smugglers and other big-time foreign rice dealers who give out information freely the precise location to strike and make seizures in the bush just to protect their business and edge out their competitors.
The low-profile smugglers on their own part have a way of moving their smuggled bags of foreign rice of 50 Kg each, neatly parked in the booth of their vehicles or inside the vehicle without being harassed on the road.
The analysts had said that the low-profile smugglers, who operates in Ogun state, between the Ipokia, Imeko Afon, Yewa North, Yewa south. Ogun Waterside axis and Sango Ota in Ado-Odo/Ota, Local Government Area of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo home state have a way of beating the security agencies, including Customs personnel on the road to it.
A Danfo driver, who had stocked his bus with foreign rice to be delivered to a Customer at Sango Ota market may have been disappointed as he could not maneuver his way to beat the Border Patrol officer who was aid to have refused to collect money to allow him pass, insisting that he was on a national assignment sent by Kayode Egbetokun, the Inspector General of Police, IGP.
The Border Patrol officer had said that their job along the Idiroko- Sango Ota Road is to complement the job of the NCS, personnel on the road. It took the intervention of other Policemen on the road to get the tDanfo bus stocked with foreign rice in every space to be released by officer who was to have challenged the driver to swear that he has ever given him money since he has been plying the road carrying load.
On Thursday, April 10, 2025, a Korokpe bus driver who had been engaged by a trader at Oshodi to help deliver some bags of foreign rice which she had succeeded in taking to Sango Ota. The bags of foreign rice may have been shared into different buses to carry but the Korokpe driver appears unlucky.
No sooner he had he left the Sango Ota under bridge axis where he was assisted by some Area boys to the rice, neatly covered with cloth in the booth of the bus than three fierce-looking policemen who had boarded another bus to have trailed him. The bus used by the security perity personnel may have caught up with the commercial bus along the Sango Ota-Lagos Road and promptly for stop and search. The Value News online Magazine had watched the ensuing drama on the road.
Rather than wasting much time at the scene, described as a home of Area boys, to avoid attracting the attention of the Area boy the passengers were transferred to another vehicle while one of the police officers took over control of the bus and ordered the driver to step in as they zoomed off to their operational base at Sango Ota.
Security experts had alluded to the fact that the Area Controller of the FOU, Zone A, Compt. Kola Oladeji, may have provided ammunition for smugglers to flood the Sango Ota with foreign rice due to the ineffectiveness of the Command Patrol team officers at the Ogun state border routes.
Recall that the FOU, Zone A, Area Controller, had repeatedly issued a matching order to the Command patrol team officers in Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti and Ondo states to ensure that all the borders routes used by the smugglers in their various areas of jurisdictions are fully blocked.
Going by the NIS, reports, there are over 90 illegal routes used by the smugglers operating between the neighbourng Republic of Benin and Nigeria to carry out their nefarious activities in Ogun state alone. But there is specific information readily available on the exact number of illegal border routes used by the smugglers within Oyo state, which may believe has significant presence in in informal crossings along with the north central state of Kwara, which borders Republic of Benin.
The NIS, had reportedly said that Nigeria has over 1,400 illegal entry points spread over Ogun, Oyo, Niger and Kwara, which shares boundary with with Benin Republic, and the north western states of Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Katsina and the north eastern states of Borno and Yobe, which borders Niger Republic including Cross river and Akwa Ibom, which hares borders with the Central African country of Cameroun by the sea.
Oyo state, which shares boundary with the north central state of Kwara, and which in turn shares boundary with Benin Republic through several border Communities in Baruten Local Government area like Ilesha Baruba, Okuta, Kosubosu, Yari, Kuburufu, Shinatoko, Gwanara,Gure, Yshikira, and Chikanda, to name but a few, may have further exposed the south western state to the activities of the Kwara state and Beni Republic based over the years.
The Value News online Magazine findings shows that foreign shipped cargoes like foreign rice, fairly used clothings, fairly used Pneumatics, fairly used vehicles into the port of Benin, Republic of Benin, have been are smuggled into the Nigerian market through Kwara state, which in turn find their way to Oyo state.
It was not surprising that whenever the FOU Zone A, Area Controller relaxes the order, which had enjoined the Command patrol team officers to tighten up security in their areas of operations, the officers also go to bed. This is eident going by the large quantities of foreign rice that had entered Lagos, through Oyo, Ogun and Edo states particular, over the last two years without any answer from the Customs personnel.
Egbetokun, the Inspector General of Police, IGP, may have known about the high level of smuggling activities in Ogun and other parts of the south western region, that sent a special Border Patrol Team, from Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, to the region, to complement the job of the Customs officers on the road to checkmate the activities of the smugglers.
Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, MFR, Comptroller General of the NCS, may have read the handwriting on the wall that he needed the support of the sister agencies to succeed. This may have informed he had laid much emphasis on inter-agency collaboration.
Even the Customs Area controllers at the nation’s seaports , airports and Land border stations appears to have taken a cue from the Customs Comptroller General to work closely with the sister security agencies in their areas of operations.
Take for instance at the Seme Command, under the close watch of Compt. Ben Nkem Oramalugo, who had made a mark in Oyo state because of his working relationship with the military and other security agencies in the state was said to have replicated at Seme axis and Badagry in Lagos state where he was said to have deployed intelligence -driven strategies and robust inter-agency collaboration coupled with the professionalism of the officers to eliminate smuggling activities in the area.
The improved working relationship between the NCS, NPF, N NDLEA, and NAFDAC, may have informed why the officers of these agencies, are giving the necessary support to the service to contain the activities of the smugglers their various areas of operations across the country.
The involvement of the sister security agencies in one of the core functions of the service which is anti-smuggling operations speaks volume. This may have encouraged the military personnel to intercept thousands of bags smuggled foreign rice in different parts of the Federation instead of turning eyes right and allow the items to go unnoticed.
Last January Troops of the Nigerian Army had intercepted and seized 139 bags smuggled foreign rice along the Shao-Jebba Expressway in Moro Local Government Area of Kwara state.
The Nigeria Navy Ship, Beecroft under the Command of Commodore Paul Nimmyel had intercepted 28 bags of Cannabis Sativa, popular India Hemp, grown in the West African country of Ghana and other countries in the West African subregion including CoteD’Ivoire , weighing 756 Kg , around Long Jetty,Ibeche Beach, in Lagos, last February, which was said to have been handed over to the NDLEA, for further investigation bear eloquent testimony that the incumbent Customs Comptroller General policy of inter-agency collaboration is actually working out.
In Nov. 2024, the Nigerian Navy Forward Operating Base, FOB, Ibaka, in Akwa Ibom state, had arrested three drug suspects and impounded their smuggled drugs valued by Valuation experts at about N500 million. There are several other instances where the Army and the Navy, particular, in different parts of the Federation where the military had stepped in to do Customs job , making spectacular Contraband seizures, that were said to have been had handed over the seizures that had to do with drugs to the NCS, which in turn had handed it over to the NDLEA, for furth investigations. Many believe that not for the inter-agency collaborations that had been initiated by the Adeniyi, the Customs Comptroller General and which had been pursued religiously over the last one year, the smugglers would have flooded the Nigerian markets with narcotics and other dangerous drugs the sea, rivers, creeks and watersides, in different parts of the country. Vintage Adeniyi.
