The Customs Area Controller in charge of the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone A' of the Nigeria Customs Service; Mr. Isa Nuhu recently had an interactive session with some maritime journalists, where he gave a scorecard of the unit for year 2013, Shipping Position Daily correspondent; Dapo Olawuni was there.
What effort are you making to curtail smuggling of rice?
The Customs Area Controller in charge of the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone A' of the Nigeria Customs Service; Mr. Isa Nuhu recently had an interactive session with some maritime journalists, where he gave a scorecard of the unit for year 2013, Shipping Position Daily correspondent; Dapo Olawuni was there.
What effort are you making to curtail smuggling of rice?
The question is always about rice and honestly I do not blame you, if you go to the market now, Daleko (market) in particular, you will think that Customs is not working, because the rice that we are crying that we are seizing; we still see them in the market, so how can you come and tell me that you are working when what has been banned is still seen in the market, so when somebody tells me this, I always say that he is justified, he has a reason to become furious, but then, it is like just looking at one side of the coin. Before you can make a robust and objective judgment, you actually need to look at both sides of the coin, try to go to our warehouses and look at the volume of rice that customs has succeeded in seizing, it is then you will know that we are not losing the battle, then you will know that if the customs was not there, things would have been worse. There is no day that hundreds of bags of rice are not seized, there is a limit to which these things can be done, but the bottom line remains that customs, day in and day out is working assiduously to checkmate the activities of rice smugglers, and I can beat my chest and tell you that we are winning the war, it all depends on from which side you are looking at it, there was a time our warehouse was so filled that we had to start hiring containers to put the rice.
How come we still see the rice in the market?
Sometimes when I speak with my officers, I also ask them how come, how does the rice get to the market? But when we sit down and look at so many things, the Nigerian border is so complex; in the northern part it is fair, when someone is passing by you can see them at seven kilometers, but here, if someone is passing behind my back you won't be able to know unless you are there. Along the creeks alone, there are several routes, the last time I went there, believe me, unless someone tells you that they are smuggling rice through that place there is no way that you will know. Secondly, the communities actually thrive on these smuggling activities, I discovered that along the waterways, they have expanded the water to the centre of the community where you don't even have to trek, the rice will just come to your door step, around Agbara area there, it took me one hour to actually go inside, and unless somebody pilots you, if you go there alone you will get lost and you won't be able to come out, there are so many routes into the villages but you cannot come out. What we need to do is to continue to empower the communities, because part of the reason for this is poverty, I am blaming the community now, but do they have something else to do? Somebody has been born and bred in a particular community, he has not gone to school and he does not know any other trade, as far as he is concerned he is just doing his normal trade, you have not educated him to know that it is injurious to the Nigerian economy; what we need to do is to continue to enlighten them.
Is smuggling increasing or decreasing?
Of course it is decreasing seriously, it all depends on how you look at it, smuggling is the product of the fiscal policy of the government, so if you know that and you want to minimize smuggling, let it reflect in the fiscal policy, the smuggling of rice wasn't like this before, it has gone up because government has banned its importation through the land borders, but as far as I am concerned, the level of smuggling is seriously decreasing, everything now has been modernized, including the FOU, and I think the generality of Nigeria is better for it.
Are there any incentives for the officers who risk their lives to go after the smugglers?
The average customs officer now is highly motivated more than any point in time, today we know that an average custom officer is insured. Let's even not talk about the welfare which has been greatly enhanced, I know that today, God forbid, if for any reason I lose my life, I know my life has been insured, this is a great incentive, whether we like it or not, one day we will all die, either in service or for another cause, but if you die while in active service you are insured. There are very few organizations in Nigeria today that are better remunerated than customs, and as far as government agencies are concerned, I think we are one of the leaders, in terms of allowances, salaries, logistics support, training and retraining, it has never been better than this, the simple answer is that customs officers have every available incentives they need to do their job.
Why are the FOU officers still checking goods coming from the sea ports?
There is nothing like that, perhaps what you want to say is that you still see officers arresting goods, FOU officers still go out on information patrol, there is nothing stopping us from doing that, if I seat here and I am told that containers are leaving the ports even though their duties have been compromised or that banned items are inside the containers, you do not seriously expect me to allow them go. The idea is that there should not be FOU along the roads manning a permanent checkpoint, so I want you to differentiate between officers going out to intercept offensive cargoes coming out of the ports, this is legal.
But clearing agents still lament that they see them around the port
There is no single FOU officers anywhere, apart from PTML, I had officers at PTML Mile 2 up till Monday this week, the reason is simple, part of my mandate here is to ensure that there is security in all those places. I provide security in all customs formation, PTML is one command that until last week they never had an enforcement unit at all, and because of that I extended my courtesy to them only at Mile 2, this is because the rowdy situation at the place makes it very volatile, so we needed to be there to maintain peace, and by the grace of God the Comptroller General has made PTML an enforcement station, and immediately he gave that approval, I removed my officers, this thing I am telling you, I don't need to tell the agents and they will not know, they don't even know why we were there, while the officers were there, I made sure they did not interfere into what does not concern them, I told the Deputy Controller in charge to always give me a feedback directly.
What has Customs done for the families of officers that died last year?
Its unfortunate that we lost some officers last year, but it was not in the cause of doing their job, it was mostly through secondary effect, when somebody (because of the pressure of work) decided to develop high blood pressure and suddenly collapses, you won't say that he died while performing his job, but the job is still the cause. In the light of this, I lost quite a number of officers last year, you discovered that somebody slept and he never woke up again, he is not confronting any smuggler, he just didn’t wake up. This is why we encourage the officers to be proactive and monitor their health status, it was not peculiar to the FOU, it was afflicting the general service, the CG had to make sure that every officer is given high blood pressure monitor to watch their blood pressure; if it’s going out of hand, they consult their doctor. So I think it was the cumulative effect that affected the officers. If you die as a result of secondary factor, the insurance will not come in.
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