The Comptroller General of Customs Strike Force Team A, based in Lagos has netted over N3b from demand notices in eleven months and made seizures worth N643,727,837 within six weeks.
The coordinator of the team, Ahmadu Shuaibu who briefed newsmen in Lagos said the recovered sum was achieved through meticulous checks of documents to uncover infractions of duty shortfalls.
According to him, more than N3 billion would have been lost by the federal government if the shortfalls were not detected by the ICT section of the team.
Shuaibu, a Deputy Comptroller of Customs disclosed that most of the recent seizures made by the strike force Team A comprised more of export infractions that contravenes government policy on exportation.
Prominent among the seizures were donkey hides and skin, unprocessed wood, charcoal, rice and footwear.
According to him, the export prohibition guidelines is in tandem with the Federal Government’s policies for the protection of endangered species, protection of the local economy and promotion of National Forest Policy that was approved by the Federal Executive Council aimed at greatly assisting the nation’s sustainable management of its vast forest resources against deforestation.
He gave a breakdown of the seizures which includes 12,500 pieces of donkey hides and skin in 2×40 containers; 3,891 sacks of charcoal in 6×40 containers and 1×20 containers.
Other seizures shown to journalists include 5x20ft containers of unprocessed logs of wood; 167 pieces of used tyres; one unit of Mazda bus and 1,372 bags of foreign parboiled rice.
While reiterating his team’s commitment to the anti-smuggling operations, Shuaibu said since they have resolved to continually smuggle, his team will keep ahead by making seizures and arrests where necessary
He added that his relentlessness in fighting the economic crime of smuggling is to cause monumental losses to smuggling kingpins and cripple their financial powers to keep committing the vice
Shuaibu said, if they keep smuggling, we will keep seizing their wares
He quoted popular author, Chinua Achebe whose character, Eneke the bird resolved that since Men have learned to shoot without missing, it has learned to fly without perching