Group charges Customs to extend relief materials to prison inmates

Tayo Oladipupo |

All Port Unified Freight Forwarders Practitioners has called on the Nigeria Customs Service to extend its hands of fellowship in relief materials distributions to prison inmates across the country.

While commending the Service for the initiative of giving out seized items to orphanages and Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, it suggested that millions of persons in prison custody need to benefit from the magnanimity.

In line with its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the service has distributed relief materials to 134 less privileged homes in the south west of the country as well as distributing relief materials to IDPs across the nation.

The Service Sub-Committee on Relief Items to Orphanages has also disclosed that a cumulative number of 7,350 orphans in the South West region comprising; Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states benefited from the exercise.

The service has also moved the exercise to zone B comprising Kaduna, Kano, Katsina Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi states among others distributing relief materials to the needy.

According to a statement released by the service recently, great impact has been made on the lives of orphans in the last three weeks, in line with the federal government’s intention to alleviate the suffering of the less privileged citizens.

President of All Port Unified Association, Prince Mike Okorie suggested that such largesse should be extended to prison inmates across the country.

According to him, medical items that are impounded by officers and men can be channelled to the inmates if approved by NAFDAC.

He added that, “Apart from rice vegetable oil, tomato pastes, other Items like frozen turkey and chicken that are mostly destroyed by the service can play a vital role in the lives of inmates because Nigerians still patronise such edibles in the local market and they are still living without any form of illness.

“These are some of the proactive measures that we should embrace as stakeholders in the system.

The President further lamented that the over 10,000 bags of expired rice under the custody of Western Marine Command of the service would have ameliorated the suffering of prisoners, saying “Such items can provide succour to all the inmates in prisons across the six geo political zones for a period.

Similarly, the association disclosed that it has written to the Federal Operations Unit Zone A ,for a meeting in furtherance to share ideas and information on how to address key issues affecting trade facilitations and clearance of goods from the ports.