The big racket: How Customs, Smugglers collude to sabotage government policy on vehicles, rice at borders

The Federal government ban on the importation of vehicles and rice through the border posts has created a thriving business for Customs officers at the borders and smugglers, especially at Seme and Idiroko.

The two parties, investigation revealed, have struck an illicit partnership through which they make millions of Naira each day from the policy.

It would be recalled that in 2016, government restricted the importation of rice to sea Ports to checkmate smuggling in an attempt to boost local production.

Also, in 2017, that same ban was placed on vehicles importation through the land borders to stem the indiscriminate entry meant to strengthen the auto policy.

However, this policy has become a goldmine to some Customs officers at the borders who make merchandise of the policy.

Investigation showed, that, through arranged method mutually agreed upon by the Customs and the smugglers, certain amount of these banned items are given free passage on daily basis, after money must have exchanged hands.

While the Customs officers smile to the banks, the smugglers have free access for their goods without paying duties, since government does not expect revenue from such banned items.

A Beninois who claimed to work as a cargo consolidator at Seme Border, Didier Kouandete, alleged that a truck of rice leaving Cotonou port pays a bribe of N2million before it could be given access to move unhindered in Nigeria.

The money, according Kouandete, is paid to the Customs operatives to allow the goods gain free entry into Nigeria despite the fact that the Federal Government has banned the importation of rice into the country through the land border.

When asked if official customs receipt is issued after the payment of the amount, he quipped “How can you collect receipt on bribe money? It is not Customs duty because you cannot pay officially since rice is banned through the land border. This is money we pay to the officials to facilitate easy movement otherwise, the rice will be seized.”

He also added that, apart from the money paid at the major Customs checkpoints, other smaller bribes are handed out at other checkpoints mounted by other security agencies including the army, police, immigration, mobile police and others. He said amounts paid out at such other checkpoints depend on the size of the truck.

To confirm that truckloads of banned foreign parboiled rice are allowed, it was gathered foreign parboiled rice were sold unhindered in Nigerian markets.

Major markets where smuggled foreign parboiled rice are sold unabated in Lagos and Ogun are Sango-Otta, Lafenwa; Kuto; and Oja Odan in Ogun State; Daleko in Mushin, Ebute Ero; Iyana Ipaja and Iddo markets all in Lagos State, are over filled with smuggled rice of various brands.

Also, a car dealer, Mukaila Olaore, who visits Cotonou regularly to buy vehicles, said that vehicles cannot be smuggled without the connivance of officers at the borders.

Olaore also disclosed that Customs at the borders are aware of movement of vehicles and rice into the country.

“When we are about to move our vehicles across border, we go to meet all the relevant agencies, especially Customs to give them the agreed sum of money.

“They give us number and time to move. The vehicles must not be more than the numbers agreed and we must not exceed the time given to move those vehicles”

“The time they give us to pass is when they have either asked their officers to stand down or allow us to have easy passage,” he said in a chat recently.

Seme border in Lagos is the busiest border in the South West followed by Idiroko in Ogun State. The two borders are old border towns that take one to Porto Novo and Cotonou, all in Benin Republic within just 45 minutes.

This unholy alliance between the customs and smugglers has led to an influx of banned items into the country, despite the federal government ban.

For instance, in 2017, the Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, intercepted a whopping 62 vehicles and 120, 700 bags of rice already smuggled into the country through Seme and Idiroko.

The command also recovered N1.95billion from seized rice and Vehicles that were smuggled into the country through these two porous borders.

The FOU, Zone A, which is the anti-smuggling arm of the service in the South-West, have the mandate to impound items smuggled into the country either through approved or unapproved routes.

In August 2017, about 37 assorted vehicles (eight Lexus Jeep LX 570; 12 Land Cruiser Jeep, all 2017 model and 17 Toyota Hilux were intercepted. Also, in October, 11 vehicles were seized which included two Lexus jeeps; one Toyota Rav4; two Toyota Camry cars; five Mercedes Benz and one IVECO truck.

The unit in December 2017 evacuated brand new vehicles smuggled into the country through the same Seme and Idiroko borders.

Giving a breakdown of the seized vehicles, the Customs Area Controller Of the unit, Comptroller Mohammed Uba Garba, said 2 Lexus Jeep (Bullet Proof), 1 Toyota Land Cruiser (Bullet Proof), 9 Toyota Hilux , 8 Toyota Hiace buses, 26 Toyota Corolla, 9 Land Cruiser jeeps, 5 Toyota Camry, 1 Land Rover, 1 Nissan Sentra, 1 Pajero jeep, all 2017 models, 1 Sienna 2015 model and 1 Lexus RX 350 were evacuated from the warehouse for not processing import duty documents.

“Nobody has come to claim these vehicles meaning they were smuggled into the country. Nobody will clear these from the seaports and customs will come and intercept them and the person has not showed up, because they know they smuggled the vehicles’’.

‘’We doubt if they have any customs papers for the vehicles not to talk of End-User Certificate for the bullet proof,” he said.

Aside vehicles, there are massive smuggling of foreign parboiled rice which the federal government had placed a ban on since 2016.

In 2017 alone, FOU A seized over 120,673 bags of rice already smuggled into the country.

The rice is massively seized from Ogun and Lagos State.

The seizures continued unabated in 2018 with about 18 interceptions worth more than N1.6billion made within a week.

Even though, Nigeria rice production hit 15 million metric tonnes in 2017 with 34 states in Nigeria presently producing rice, with most of them now producing three times in a year.

What Nigeria gains in massive rice production are being eroded by massive smuggling of foreign rice through porous borders and help of compromised officers of the Nigeria Customs Service.
Benin Republic, a tiny West African country is known not to be the final destination but a transit points for millions of metric tonnes of rice vessels berthing at their ports.
Checks at the Cotonou Port revealed that the port handled an unprecedented 2.2 million metric tonnes of rice yearly, while most of them find their way into Nigeria.
It is widely believed that Beninois are not lovers of parboiled rice, hence the multi million metric tonnes imported through their ports, are meant for Nigerian markets through smuggling through porous borders.

However, speaking on massive smuggling of rice and Vehicles into the country, the CAC, FOU Zone A, Comptroller Mohammed Uba Garba, said complicity of Customs officers at the borders wouldn’t stop his officers from enforcing compliance in the South-West zone.
In a statement made available by the Public Relations Officer of the unit, Jerry Attah, the CAC said, “For the avoidance of doubt, the fact that a smuggler has evaded scrutiny either by following unapproved route or compromising any Officer does not guarantee that the smuggled item will not be seized anywhere it is found by patrol officers whose duty is to ensure compliance.”
When contacted, the Public Relations Officer of the Seme Area command of the service, Selchang Taupyen said even though it would be difficult to eradicate smuggling, he said the service is doing everything to suppress it to barest minimum
“As far as the land border is concerned, the policy is not new to us. The land border has been combating the menace of smuggling and we will continue to do just that because it has been part of us. We will not relent on our oars to ensure the policy is enforced to the letter and except the FG passed another policy.
On his own part, the Public Relations Officer, Ogun State Command of Nigeria Customs, Abdullahi Maiwada said records of seizures at the command confirmed that his command is battling smuggling head on.
“You can check our records we have done well last year as we made lot of seizure. We have over 19,000 seized rice in our warehouse. In fact, we have sent over 11,000 bags to IDP and our warehouse is filled to the brim both at Idiroko and Abeokuta. The policy will invigorate us to do more and we are ready to do more. We have done well in 2017 and what we need is to improve the tempo.
As you know, ours is to implement government policy and we will continue to deliver on our statutory responsibilities.”

However, sources claimed that the so called seizures made by customs are fewer compared to those they allowed to pass through the border under mutually agreed procedures with smugglers.

“Those seizures you see are fewer than the ones allowed to pass daily. Those ones are usually scapegoats which they must show to the authority that they are working. It is an arrangee business”, another source claimed.