· Rakes In N159.5bn In 3 Months
The Apapa Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has intercepted 1,444 bottles of cough syrup with Codeine from Mumbai India.
The Customs Area Controller Apapa, Comptroller Malanta Yussuf informed news men yesterday that the 722 cartons of codeine syrup containing 1,44 bottles declared as hot pot were tracked and intercepted due to intelligence gathering with the help of the National Drug Law and Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
He informed that the codeine cough syrup contained 11.95 milligram which is very high for human consumption, while stressing that the effect of taking the syrup might take a week before consciousness is regained.
Malanta while pleading with the general public to do away with such drugs warned the importers to desist from such importation, stating that it contravenes the Customs importation Act.
“As you are aware, codeine is banned by the federal Government because of its side effect on human health, the total cartons of this codeine is 722 containing 1,444 bottles, the intelligence we receive from our sister agency helped us track the container after waiting for a long time, in other to ensure that this product does not find his way to the market.
“The content of this is 11.95 milligram which is very high for human consumption, if you take this you will be sleeping throughout the day and might take even a week for you to regain consciousness”
“For those importing this kind of drugs, please be human and understand that this is dangerous to life, and the import contravene the importation law” he said.
Speaking also, the Commander NDLEA Apapa, Samuel Bashir Gazama, also underscored the significance of working together with the NCS in tracking the seizure. He informed that the seizure has been on the raider of the agency since September of last year, but was intercepted on the 23rd of March 2021.
“I want to underscore the significance of working together, if we have not worked together as a team with the Customs, probably we may not have been able to intercept this, we have been trailing this since September of last year 2020, and we were only able to intercept it on the 23rd of March this year.
“So you can see the span of time the criminals took, perhaps they were trying to drop off trail, or perhaps they are monitoring us to see if their container is being monitored, but thank God we worked as a team, because the customs have more control over the movement of containers, so immediately we gave them the intelligence, we were working together, exchanging intelligence at various level of operations.
“So what I want to say is, that cooperation should not just be limited to NDLEA and Customs, even the media have a stake in stopping contraband from entering this country, so all of us should work together to see that we achieve a common goal which is the safety and security of life” he said.
Meanwhile, the CAC Apapa, informed that the command in the first three months of 2021 collected a total of N159,582,047,134.11 as customs duty and other charges into the Federation Account.
He said this represents 44.8% increment in duty collection when compared to the last year figure of over N110b in the same corresponding months, January- March 2020.
He noted that the difference recorded was made possible because of the robust stakeholders engagement and the officers who are resolute in discharging their duties including increased level of compliance in the trader’s zone”.
He further said the command in its anti-smuggling fight in February and March, intercepted 23 containers of various items such as unregistered pharmaceuticals
(Tramadol and Codeine, used clothing, medicated soap and foreign parboiled rice worth N773,809, 620.
He said that the total seizures at the Command in the first quarter of the year stood at 28 containers valued at N1,871,944, 370.
”These seizures are all importations in breach of Section 46, 47, 161 of the Customs and Excise Management Act, CAP C45 LFN 2004 and Schedules 4 & 6 of the Common External Tariff (CET). These cases are in various stages of investigation and you will be briefed from time to time as investigation progresses”.
“For the period under review, the Command also recorded a total of N41,559,378,029 being exports proceeds through the command. The exported products includes, manufactured goods, such as Soap, Textiles, Noodles and agricultural products such as Cashew nuts,Hibiscus, Sesame seeds and other mineral resources. The tonnage for the various exported products stood at 116 million tonnes with a Free On Board (FOB) value of $109,655,351”, he said.
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