Following the setting up of a parallel anti-smuggling Task Force by the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Alhaji Dikko Inde Abdullahi, the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone 'A' of the Service has said that this is not an indication of incompetence on the part of FOU officers.
Public Relations Officer of the zone, Mr. Uche Ejesieme who stated this in a chat, said that the task force set up by Dikko and headed by Mr. Hassan Shallangwa is to complement the efforts of the federal operations officers.
Following the setting up of a parallel anti-smuggling Task Force by the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Alhaji Dikko Inde Abdullahi, the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone 'A' of the Service has said that this is not an indication of incompetence on the part of FOU officers.
Public Relations Officer of the zone, Mr. Uche Ejesieme who stated this in a chat, said that the task force set up by Dikko and headed by Mr. Hassan Shallangwa is to complement the efforts of the federal operations officers.
Ejesieme recalled that the FOU Zone 'A' had in the past carried out major operations which included shutting down a Chinese textile warehouse in Lagos based on a tip-off.
He called on Nigerians with meaningful information about anti-smuggling operations and warehouses operating illegally and harboring fake textiles to inform the customs.
Speaking further, he said "allowing the task force to operate side by side with the unit does not translate into loss of confidence on the FOU, the truth is that they are actually complementing our anti-smuggling efforts"
"If you look at our records, you will find out that the Federal Operations Unit, particularly under the current leadership of Controller Adamu Turaki Usman has never wavered in carrying out of our functions, we have made ground breaking seizures and we are a course to reckon with as far as anti-smuggling is concerned"
"So it is pertinent to correct the fallacy that the headquarters monitoring team working with us translates into loss of confidence, they are simply complementing our efforts, we have been working with them and the results have been very awesome" he said.
He reiterated that reliable information from Nigerians on any unwholesome activities around their area, especially information on a warehouse with fake textiles, the unit would send in its operatives and recover the place.
Uche confirmed that through the units' internal mechanism on anti-smuggling, it had last week sealed off two warehouses operating illegally.
"Section 46 of CEMA deals with improper importation, and by the provision of this section the law covers us to do our job"
"We also have our own internal mechanism, just yesterday we seized about two warehouses and it is a continuous exercise".
"The FOU had in the past sealed off the Chinese warehouse in Ikeja and the seizure was groundbreaking, it happened years ago"
"What we need is reliable information and that is why we are calling on Nigerians because customs cannot do it alone", he added.
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