Fears grip customs officers over bees attack at border — desert checks points

Most of the Customs officers manning the numerous check points along Mile-Two-Seme border are living in morbid fears over the recent death of their team leader, Abba Abubakar, who was stung to death by a swarm of strange bees.

Last month, the victim, an Assistant Superintendent of Customs, was attacked and killed by rampaging bees while he was at his duty post at one of the check points.

As a result, the rest officers who are his subordinates, were said to have deserted the check points where the strange incident happened and moved few kilometres away to avoid a possible recurrence.

While the death of the ill-fated officer remains a mystery,his colleagues were gripped with fears that a recurrence might be in the offing as a result of which both Ashipa and Gbetromen check points have been deserted.

Investigations show that between Agbara and Seme Border post,there exist no fewer than 11 check points manned by both the police and Customs officers.

The check points were ostensibly created to deter smuggling activities but were in actual sense used as extortion points as smugglers were more often than not seen negotiating with customs officers.

The Customs officers in particular,had focused much attention on smugglers of rice -a product which importation through the borders remains banned by the Federal government.

Smugglers who could not immediately agree with whatever demands made by the customs officers would swiftly have their goods seized.

Recently, there was a stand-off between the customs officers at the Seme Border and those at the Federal Operations Unit [FOU] over who was actually in-charge.

Goods cleared by the Seme Customs officers would upon getting to Ijannikin axis of Lagos seized by the officers from the Federal Operations Unit.

The face off ,for weeks, paralysed commercial activities along the route not until the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi,intervened and the matter resolved amicably.

Further checks revealed that,no sooner the matter was resolved than some Customs officers who wanted to make up for the lost days , resorted to high -handedness “as seizures of goods were made with impunity while the owners of such goods were arrested”

The massive seizures soon became the talks of the town. It was during this period that strange bees were said to have attacked and killed the Team Leader

According to sources, the attack on the victim officer was viewed as “spiritual” and as such,the check points were completely deserted.

“What the officers did was to move some kilometers away from the original point”, a source said.

It would be recalled that, the deceased customs officer was at the near-by filling station to buy gas when he was reportedly attacked by warring bees that stung him to death.

His Jalamia free flowing cloth could not wade off the rampaging bees.