Eagle-eyed customs personnel at the Apapa area 1 command of the Nigeria Customs Service have intercepted a large cache of ammunitions at the APM Terminals in Apapa port, Lagos.
One suspect has already been arrested and detained in connection with the seizure while a medical doctor, one Doctor John Bolujoko who is said to be based in the United States of America was alleged to be the importer.
Controller of the command, Mr. Akinade Adewuyi disclosed last week that the dangerous cargoes which were concealed in a 40-foot container were declared as personal effects.
On examination, the container was discovered to have been loaded with a carton of gun cleaning kit with accessories and chemicals, two boxes of gun assembling tools, a small bag of gun powder, reloading scales and other precision tools. Other items, according to the customs boss included: 533 empty shells of various calibres, 5218 live ammunitions, target practices accessories as well as books of instruction on arms practice.
“The consignment emanated from the United States of America. The name of the consignee is one Dr John Bolujoko of South West hospital in Ibadan. We have not been able to lay our hands on the suspect ,but according to the documents with which the PUBD was passed, another guy was supposed to be notified and we have been able lay our hands on that one”, the Comptroller disclosed.
Adewuyi who became the area controller of the premier command about one month ago following his transfer from Ogun state command also disclosed that 20 units of 20-foot containers of imported vegetable oil in 25 litre jerry cans were intercepted.
“The containers were arrested through intelligence network which indicated that the consignee was trying to move the containers to Inland Container Depot (ICD), Kano on transfer as industrial raw material. On examination of four randomly selected containers they were found to contain Saba premium grade vegetable cooking oil in 25 litres jerry cans”, he disclosed.
According to him, “the consignment was imported from Singapore but the product was manufactured in Malaysia. You will recall that importation of refined vegetable oil contravenes section 5 schedule 3 of the Common External Tariff (CET) 2008-2012. The containers have since been seized and the suspects have been detained pending further investigations”.
Lamenting the volume of the illegal vegetable oil imports, Adewuyi said: “It is indeed saddening to note that while citizens of other nations are working concertedly to tackle the global economic downturn, some unscrupulous Nigerians are busy importing vegetable oil from Malaysia who incidentally borrowed their palm kernel seeds from Nigeria in the ‘60s”.
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