“I Did Not Send People To Collect Money On The Roads And Dikko Never Sent Anybody To Collect Money” …….Comptroller Emmanuel Kane
“It Is Painful That You Can Not Move For A Kilometre Before You Are Stopped For Checks Either By Police Or Customs”
“We Went For Thanksgiving When We Heard That The FOU Has Been Called Off The Road”……..Prince Olayiwola Shittu
Comptroller Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone ‘A’, Nigeria Customs Agents, Mr Emmanuel Kane has been on a subtle trouble –shooting mission since the recent directive of the Customs Comptroller General, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko Inde that officers of FOU should cease being on the highways. His first port of call was the national secretariat of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA). Our correspondent, Dapo Olawuni was at the parley between the FOU boss and the national, zonal and chapter leadership of ANLCA. As a demonstration of the importance which we attach to the initiative of the FOU boss and because of our knowledge of the undercurrents which led to the CG, Customs directive, we are doing the unusual this week by devoting this page to the interaction between the two groups.
ANLCA: Comptroller Kane is here today not as a result of what has happened in the immediate past, but I am sure he has decided in his wisdom and by experience and age that there is need for him to come and hear from us; what is that thing that is pinching us just like we have also complained to him about the things that are pinching us. The primary duty of a customs license agent is to assist the customs in generating revenue for customs for them to collect, but in most cases we have not been doing things the way they should be done, we look at ourselves as agents to the importer, we have forgotten our primary constituency which is to work in harmony with the Nigerian custom service and enhance revenue collection for the federal government, but be it as it may, something must make two people to tango, we need to find a meeting point where we can collaborate, the mere fact that you have decided to come and visit us has kindled a sort of awareness in our people, majority of the people you see here just want to hear from you and there was no way for them to go to FOU that they want to hear the comptroller.
Comptroller Kane:
……On Customs license agents and customs officers
Customs license agents and officers of the Nigeria Customs Service are one and the same, the only individual between the two of us are the importers, you are trained and appointed to represent and carry out functions to make the Nigeria Customs Service operations easier, God in his wisdom created man and empowered some of them to assist other man, this is like an extension of the hand of God, in the wisdom of the government the service was created and it was also thought prudent and proper to have somebody that will be able to interpret the laws and the functions of the service to the importer in order to facilitate the relationship and trade, it makes it easier for the service and government policies to be carried to the members of the public and the importers who are not able to know the nitty-gritty of the service. Like all agencies and institutions of government, there are extant and prevailing laws that are bound to be in conflict with the interest of the members of the public, government in its wisdom thinks it prudent every year to review these laws, we do not want this to happen, while we are going about our ordinary businesses the people we elected in office are to sit down in sessions and be thinking of how we can better the country, at the end of the day they are able to collate everything and make it into laws or policies, these polices may not always be what we would like , the citizens generally might not like the policies of government, the Nigeria Customs Service does not have its own law, the law we act on is the law of the Nigerian state, customs doesn’t formulate its own law to suit it but it operates within the laws available and the policies that are churned out by government annually. It is the duty of the clearing agents as sisters and friends of the service to pass the information, it is also our own duty to partner and collaborate with you to ensure that what government want us to do is done. You will agree with me that it is not a very easy matter, sometimes in the course of doing our job as a human being some of the actions we have to take might be painful but that is what the law says you should do, averagely I can beat my chest to say that 90 percent of you are my own brothers, but I still ask goods to be converted to seizure and not according to my own wickedness, I have a human heart but my job says that if something offends the CEMA, our policy makers meant well for this country, but the only problem we have is that we as Nigerians are not patriotic. I sympathize and empathize with the members of ANLCA because when the chips are down they blame it on license agents, but did the importer do what he was supposed to do? Most of the time, very few importers will declare the totality of all he has put in a 40- foot container so you are left to get a bad name, the custom officer who is probably on intelligence now had to dig the container to verify and they are seen as evil people, are they not operating within the laws and what the law says about prohibited items? So take note today that Baba Ogoni is very soft and also friendly.
……Be careful with the importers
Let me tell you members of ANLCA that you all know the atmosphere is about to change, politics is in the air now, it is your own duty and mine to make sure that this country is secure, you have a duty to cross check properly what anybody is giving to you to clear, we have had cases that happened, innocently someone gave you a container and told you he had something inside and at the end of the day you find something else inside. I won’t be sitting down here talking to you if I have been brought up on Indian hemp, I would have been a wreck, you have children and I have mine, so we must not allow these things to go on. The situation now calls for serious cooperation, this is no time for anybody to start talking of enmity, customs can never be enemy to the license customs agents who are their own, it can not be, the officers themselves know that there is no way you can like me thoroughly, if you do, then it means something is wrong with me. I am a police man of sort and nobody likes a police man when he is doing the right thing, you members of ANLCA are not the problem, the common problem we have is the importer who have not told you the proper thing, if somebody is bringing in a cargo and he says he is not going to pay or maybe, he gives you the money and you manipulate it, you will go to prison and if it happens, don’t call me or start accusing your president. I have never asked any of these boys who are roving to come back with anything and I am glad because the Comptroller General has upped my salary to a point that I can eat well and take care of basic things. Don’t forget that the customs officers are under great obligation to give back to government that which has been given to them, so any officer either in FOU or in the ports that is still leaving in the past will sooner or later know what will happen.
……..Teach your importers to know
Tell your importers what they should know about the value of cars and goods so that if he decides not to obey, you will not be liable. There need to be a very serious cooperation between us and the cooperation is on how we can save the industry. The textiles that you see out there are being concealed; you and I know why government says second hand clothing should not be brought in; there are the health and economic aspect of it, government in its wisdom cannot just get up and decide things that will inflict pains on the people, we agree that in the industry, certain things are not in place for manufacturing to flourish and for jobs to be created. At this point, my own dilemma is that it will be difficult for me to change my position, but I came here to let you know that the devil is not as dark as it is painted, one side is white, the other side is black, and so, it all depends on which side of the road you are standing when the devil is passing. I am not a thoroughly evil person but when it comes to my job my shirt is made of cast iron. I come here with peace and the friendship that the Comptroller General is exhibiting; I come here to partner with you to collaborate with you so that you can facilitate trade, but I want you to take note that those people you thought are helping you are not actually helping you, they see a 2010 and give you a value of 2004 and by the time you think you are done somebody close to them again will inform us about your container, they are the ones that are your problem, your problem is not Comptroller Kane, your problem are those who live through your sweat and thereafter make you look useless, but I am tackling them, there is no question of taking members of this association to court and leaving out officers that were instrumental to it, but you should also resist the temptation of wanting to cut corners so that you can make it big. Those that have decided that they can not do their job in a clean way I want you people to jointly alongside with Shittu join us to fish them out, let us also help in educating the people in the Diaspora who send these things, tell them what should come in and what should not come in, don’t bring one or two cars in a container and load other things inside expecting that when you come and rub my back I will let it go. I did not send people to collect money on the roads and Dikko never sent anybody to collect money, but it takes two to tangle, don’t give money on-behalf of an importer.
ANLCA: Many of us went for thanks giving when we heard the news that the FOU has been called off the road.
Kane: Every morning when you wake up from bed you thank God, how much more when you are on a job and you came out successful or if a perceived obstacle is graciously removed, then you are entitled to thanks giving, however having come from thanksgiving you should look at your self and be conscious of the fact that the law is still there, truly it is painful that you can not move for a kilometre before you are stopped for checks; either by police or customs, it gives siege mentality and nobody loves it, that thing you want to see for every kilometres you can still see it from thousands of kilometres if you have trust. The FOU has its mandate, it’s supposed to operate freely and move around freely. Don’t go to church for thanksgiving so that you can carry prohibitions for people, or to make false declarations and expect to get away with it, you will be surprised that even God himself will fail you, the good lord rather than help you will deliver you into our hands. I have removed these boys from the roads if any of you see them in any angle again that is not a custom formation, pick my number and call me, any road within this Lagos metro police that you see my officers park containers other than the ones they targeted and move away, then let me know immediately, they have the mandate of the service to move round or to stay in the custom formation or wherever and act on information. So continue to do thanksgiving for being able to move freely which is your right, but you have to avoid that which is unlawful, it does not remove the collaboration, the ANLCA should collaborate with the officers to fish out the bad ones both within the customs agents and within the service.
ANLCA: Is it among the primary function of the FOU to stop containers on the roads based on valuation, do they value goods?
Kane: There is no officer that is trained to be an enforcement officer, my first posting was to Apapa; from the training college, and unfortunately I did not have the opportunity of being in the long room until I was transferred out, but what I discovered is that every officer is trained both on enforcement and also on revenue, to look at a document and determine if the value is low will take somebody who is technically sound, so even the FOU, as handed over to me does not say that if a job or container was brought in and it was very ridiculous in terms of payment and value, there is no law that says you should not collect the value. Primarily, the FOU is to enforce the laws, I don’t have any revenue target, so I am not compelled to collect, but as a trained customs officer we can not fold our hands and see where revenue is being lost and simply say because you are not mandated, and then you won’t collect it. If you go to FOU right now, we now have an ASYCUDA in place, there is a linkage in my office, I write to the controller to confirm certain payments for purposes of officialdom and that is where we talk about looking at your job and using wisdom to do it, which is better. These officers know what comes from China and Taiwan and so on looking at your invoice something strikes him because your form M is saying something and your invoice is saying something else, when this happens the officer is aware, but you might think it’s arbitrary.
ANLCA: How can we get customs data on valuation so that we can work with it and not be scared of coming across your men?
Kane: The essence of coming to parley with you is so that we don’t behave like the hyena and the goat, or creating the perception that the customs officer is the hyena and the agent is the goat that the hyena wants to tear apart or vice versa, we are talking about our country where nobody pays all the taxes, and like I told you that each and everyone of us here have been to the ports, I came in and served three years plus in the ports, I came back again for another one year and that is how I landed here today. We are not here to talk about the treatise of what is happening in the ports and what people like us are doing, it is sometimes very shameful.
ANLCA: How come we still see some custom officers along the Ijora Bridge?
Kane: These things are a thing of the past, there is no point within Lagos again that you are going to see officers stationed and waiting for containers, if you see it then put a call to me immediately because it is not the mode of our operation, but if you go to church and say God I thank you because there is nothing like Federal Operations Unit again, then you are mistaken, you will need to leave God and revert to voodoo, you are going to (more than any other times) continue to see customs officers in the federal operations outfit flowing around, when you see then stopping any container then call me or call Shittu, but they can stop even at the port or at the gate of the Tin Can and pick any particular container based on information and take it to FOU, there is nothing you can do about that.
ANLCA: Why is it that containers stay in FOU sometimes for seven days because of valuation discrepancies?
Kane: Where I came from, I wasn’t manufacturing people, God created us, but we manufacture, what kind of lesson am I then impacting into them? Definitely not wickedness. I am a very humane person and nobody should shield you away from seeing me, my numbers are public, pick your phone and call me if your container is detained unjustifiably, don’t stay far away and expect it to be cleared. I am telling you that if you see the level of seizure that we make, you will be worried, last month alone the seizure was about 280, nobody has gone to court to say these things were seized wrongly and I will never allow my signature to convert to seizure what is not right, it means that the level of compliance is very low and that’s why we are here, these duties were paid through e-payment, if you are foolish enough to give what is supposed to be paid as duty to somebody else in the port or on the roads, then you are on your own. I want us to raise the level of compliance, I want us to give to Nigeria the trust that it has imposed in us in the sense that you must not give to bribe to anybody all because you want to continue to win jobs, let us stop accepting what we otherwise should not, by this you have the capacity to drive the federal operations men off the highway, you have the capacity to do that.
ANLCA: It will not be worth our while to call the CAC on phone for frivolous issues especially when you know you are carrying contraband and you now call the man out in the night, we have interventions here in our national secretariat. I don’t switch my phone off too, the zonal coordinator and the general secretary are here, but we will not intervene on anything that is fraudulent; it is fraud at your own risk. We will need to give reorientation to ourselves and this is the beginning for our people to learn to do things the right way, my job as the president is to fight a course when your rights are abused, but if your rights are not abused, but you want to abuse our own right I will abuse yours too.
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