A former President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF); Dr. Eugene Nweke has explained that the Nigeria Customs Service is backed by the provision of the Custom and Excise Act (CEMA) to go to any automobile market or warehouse or even residential homes to seize any vehicle suspected to be smuggled.
Nweke, gave this explanation last week in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos.
He also said that the low cargo throughput is another major reason the service seems to be raiding automobile markets and warehouses more than before.
“They can’t help it; that is what the customs laws say, CEMA allows that and that is why the customs do, they are just carrying out what the constitution asks them to do, it is a law in the CEMA. They are also doing it now because the cargo throughput is down and they want to generate revenue by all means. If cargo throughput is high, they won’t have time to be checking all these things, where were they when all those vehicles came into the country in the first place through the land border. But the act empowered them to go and remove anything they suspect that is smuggled even from the provision shop; not only warehouse. If they come to your provision store are see that most of the things there are contraband they will pick them up and you will come and explain, it is there law”, he said.
He also challenged owners of such vehicles to come up with genuine documents of the vehicles to reclaim them.
“If the owners of the seized vehicles have genuine documents, they should go there and the cars will be released to them, it is only with a genuine document that the car will be released to them. It is only when they go with genuine documents and the customs refuses to give them the vehicles, that is when they will involve people like us, we are freight forwarders; we are their lawyers. But the point is that some of them go and do the wrong thing with small boys and they will come back and be crying wolf, custom is doing the right thing”, he said.
Reacting to this, the Controller in charge of the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) A of the Nigeria Customs Service, Comptroller, Muhammed Uba, warned vehicles smugglers to desist from illegal trade, adding that it will not add any value to their lives.
He also added that Customs will ensure that the government policies are imposed and bad eggs are fished out of the society.
“Government formulates rules and regulations to run the economy, it is for the welfare of the citizens that is why these rules and regulations are in place. If however for no patriotic reasons an individual or a group of individuals decides to do the contrary we will ensure that the government policies are imposed. That is why we have brought these vehicles here and we will continue to do so to ensure that the society is cleaned of the bad eggs”, he concluded.
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