Seme: Muhammed Goes Tough On Smugglers And Trans-Border Criminals

By Stephen Ubanna

Importers with their  agents plying the Seme route with Concealed  goods  are in for trouble This is because Muhammed Uba Garba, the Area ,  Controller, and Adahunse  Rashid, a Deputy Comptroller in-charge of the Command Enforcement Unit,  including the patrol team leaders have gone back to the drawing board to  review their anti-smuggling operations strategies.

Note that Sere is only one route  either from Seme/Krake Joint Border or the Owode outation  to take delivery of cleared truck ladden or smuggled goods to the Lagos market. There are fears that  Seme Patrol  team officers  may have relaxed in their anti-smuggling operations which had rubbed off on the Comptroller General of Customs, CGC,  Strike Force and the Federal Operations Unit, FOU, Zone A, resident officers  and its newly established  anti-smuggling team along the Owode road  and  at the Gbaji checkpoint .

Many  may  think that  the anti-smuggling fire  in Seme Customs Comptroller  when he was FOU, Zone A, may have been extinguished   as he is no longer making spectacular seizures , he was known for at the FOU, Zone A,  within the one year , he was there. 

Unknown to many,  the Customs Comptroller , has his plan B, to deal with the suspected  smugglers  in the area including the importers with the agents who  Conceal  prohibited goods into their trucks.   They may have known that the Customs Comptroller  was out for them  with  closure of the Atlas park at  Republic of Benin side of the Border  and the provision of  a temporary  park on the Nigeria side for the agents to be keeping their trucks after  joint examination  comprising both  the Nigerian  and Beninois Customs personnel and other security agencies  personnel at the  land Border.

The Seme Customs Comptroller may have finally sanitised  the activities of the  agents  who are used to doing  dirty jobs at the  land Border station  that he move moved his anti-smuggling war chest  to Owode  out station. His efforts appear to  have paid out.

 The Value  News  learnt when information leaked out to him based  on his renewed intelligence gathering machinery   that a truck  cloaded with Indomie but  have wraps of canabis Stiva, popular, India hemp,  Concealed in it  was heading to the country.  The Customs Comptroller was said to have kept it close to his chest . He was said to have  discussed the matter with  Adanhunse, who is in-charge of  the Command Enforcement  to mobilise his  patrol teams for action. The Customs Deputy Comptroller did not hesitate in do so.

Muhammed Uba Garba: Comptroller, Seme Command

 The fallout was that  the Command  patrol teams  took over  the Owode-Gbaji rout without  letting the cat out of the back to avoid  exposing its  exclusive  operation  to  other teams. True to its intelligence gathering,  the alleged  suspected  Mitsubishi  canter  branded  in Indomie insignia  were said to have been arrested by  one of the Command  patrol  team  led by  one Hamisu , a Superintendent of Customs  , around  the notorious Mowo-Elija axis.      The trucks may not  have been seized  along the Owode-Gbaji  road as  the driver may have entered  the   found his way to the Mowo- Elija axis.  Given the determination of the Seme Customs , to get the suspected truck, he did not hesitate  in deploying  the Command patrol teams  to all the nooks and crannies of  the Seme- Badagry axis. 

It was gathered that the cartons of Indomie loaded into the truck  were brought out  to ensure the information given to the Command  about the Concealed drugs was right. True to the information giving to the  Seme Customs Comptroller, 1,582 wraps  of canabis Sativa, popular India hemp, valued  at about  N40 million was said to have been found in the  truck last May.  The drugs were said to have been promptly seized and  a suspect  allegedly arrested in connection  with the Concealed items.

With the seizure of the  hundreds of wrap  of the Sativa Canabis, drug,  Muhammed , the Seme Customs Comptroller ,  has  made a bold  Statement that it is no longer  going to be business as usual  for those who indulge in illegal trade activities  or involve in other  trans-border  crimes.

The Value News  finding show sthat Ghana,   in the last couple of years remain  the major  source of illegal supply  of the Canabis Sativa  drug consumed in the country.  This is evident by the seizure of the  seizure  of the item in the last couple of months , by various Customs Commands, particular, FOU Zone  A ,and the Seme Command, which had been traced to Ghana.

This is why Hameed Ali, a retired Army Colonel and Comptroller General, Nigerian Customs Service,  may have to take up the matter with his Ghanaian counterpart to mobilise his officers to closely monitor the items  loaded into vehicles heading to the Nigerian market. Maritime watchers believe that if the Ghanaaian, Togolese and  Beninois Customs personnel along the major roads linking these countries are doing their work as it ought to be done, it would be difficult for these wraps of Canabis Sativa to enter into Nigerian to be intercepted  by FOU, Zone A, personnel or the land Border stations patrol teams.

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