There are indications that some officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) attached to the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone ‘A’, have started interception of containers and vehicles already cleared by the Tin Can Port Customs Command and the Ports & Terminal Multipurpose Limited (PTML) Commands of the service.
A customs licensed agent, Mr. Emmanuel Onyeme, who confirmed this last week, told Shipping Position Daily in Lagos that the FOU Zone A, officials usually storm the port area daily, and mostly at weekends to patrol the ports, even as he alleged that the officers sometimes stay in front of Hanover Bonded Terminal, PTML Terminal, Tin Can Port Gate and NPA Building at Tin Can Island Second Gate.
The former Tin Can Chapter Public Relations Officer of Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) alleged that unlike what they were told before that officers from FOU Zone ‘’A are going to be stationed at least 40meters away from ports, they now come closer.
"We see FOU coming to the front of port gate, they come here regularly to patrol, before now they told us that FOU is only going to be at 40meters away from the port, but right now they have started patrolling the port"
"They stay in front of National, Hanover, PTML and they also stay on the Liverpool Bridge"
"Already, if you go to the Area B, we have three sections of Customs, we have the FOU, strike force and surveillance. When you get to Mile 2, they are also there and we also have Standards Organization of Nigeria along with them, they said they are patrolling team", he alleged.
Explaining further, he accused the officers of stopping the offloading of vehicles from the containers.
"They usually come in everyday, but mostly they come around on Saturdays, the last time they came to ‘National’, there was a fracas between them and the area boys. Whenever they come to the port, they stop containers, when they get to where cars are being offloaded, they would stop the offloading", he added.
According to him, "They seize vehicles in front of the Customs long room, at the port gate, they will tell you that they are checking documents, sometimes they threaten to take you to their office, that is if you don't parley with them and give them money"
Meanwhile, while reacting to this, the Public Relations Officer of FOU A of the service, Jerry Attah, said that command serves as the police of the service and therefore compliments the efforts of other resident commands.
He also said that if there is any intelligence report, the officers have the right to go anywhere to intercept goods or vehicles even at the terminals.
Attah however said that those who are involved in legitimate trade ghave nothing to fear about.
“Our position is this, FOU A, serves as a police to other area commands; we compliment the activities of other Area Commands like Tin Can, Apapa, PTML and Seme and any other command under South West zone. So if there are intelligence reports we can go anywhere and perform our statutory functions”
“And those who are doing legitimate trade have nothing to fear, if you are doing genuine business you have nothing to be afraid of. So when there are intelligence reports we will go and do our legitimate duty even to the terminal. If there are intelligent reports, we can join the resident officers and go to the terminal to do our statutory functions”
“The most important thing is that if there are intelligent reports, they can go there. I have not heard such report that they go to Tin Can and stop offloading of vehicles, I have not seen anybody who had cleared his vehicles genuinely, paid appropriate duty and come to complain that FOU A is harassing them, I have not heard such report. If there is any importer or agent who has such report they should bring it to us so that we will take the necessary actions. So there is no restriction to anywhere we can carry out our duty”, he told our correspondent.
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