Even as the Nigeria Customs Service is still battling with unraveling those behind the most recent importation of arms and ammunition into the country through the Tin Can port, a maritime expert and the Chief Executive Officer of the Multimix Academy, Dr Obiora Madu, has accused Nigerian politicians of being responsible for the dastardly act.
Dr. Madu said this last week end in Lagos when a team Cargo Defence Fund of the Nigerian Shippers Council, led by its Secretary; Mr Okwudili Daniels, paid him a courtesy visit.
Speaking on the state of cargo clearance at the ports, he said, “I think also that there is lack of visibility at the ports. People do this because they know it might be possible for them to get away with that. If you have a situation where the containers are scanned at the other end and the documents arrive there earlier at least for PAAR, it will be easy. And then if you have equipment in the ports which of course, as the container is passing, it will be giving you information about the container it will help”.
He added that” It is unfortunate because is it the challenge of greed and wanting to get rich quick and then the problem of our politicians. It is not a poor man that will be importing a container of arms. So it is the people who are up there, thank God this was intercepted you do not know the ones that escaped. So I think that we need to get very serious at the ports and improve scanning technology and invest in technology in our ports”.
Once people know that it(consignment) can not pass, that will be the end but once they know that they can try and succeed, they will use fake names and documents do it”, he concluded.
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