Customs seizes automotive gas oil, 178 smuggled items

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone B Command, Kaduna, said it made a total of 179 seizures of different smuggled items at various locations in the zone from May to July 2023.

The FOU Zone B comprises 10 states in the Northwest and North Central geopolitical zones with Kaduna as its administrative headquarters, while the unit’s anti-smuggling activities stretch across Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Kogi, Kwara and Niger states.

The items seized include 140 jerry cans of automotive gas oil (25 litres each), 1,000 jerry cans of premium motor spirit (25 litres each), 21 units of used vehicles, 2,234 bags of foreign parboiled rice (50 kg each) and 48 bags of foreign parboiled rice (25kg each), 226 jerrycans of foreign refined vegetable oil (25 litres each) and 278 bales of foreign second-hand clothing.

Others are 15 sacks of foreign second-hand shoes as well as 2780 cartons of foreign spaghetti, macaroni, and couscous.

The Comptroller of the unit, Musa Ibrahim Jalo, in a statement, said the assortments of items arrested in different locations within the Zone were mainly intelligence driven as well as due vigilance and diligence of officers and men of the unit.

Jalo said seizures such as illicit substances like cannabis sativa, vehicles, smuggled foreign parboiled rice and second-hand clothing, foreign soaps, vegetable oil and pastas among others were jointly arrested with the Joint Border Patrol Team (JBPT) in Kebbi State.

Jalo added that in line with the standard operating procedure (SOP) guiding the operations of sister agencies, the unit has handed over seized items outside its primary purview to relevant agencies.

He appealed to the perpetrators to desist and engage in legitimate trade, noting that the unit has no plans to negotiate Customs extant laws

“We will continue to confront all acts of smuggling and to crush every obstacle on the way with all lawful force. I, therefore, advise Nigerians to raise the scale of trade facilitation through improved compliance and continuous partnership and engagement,” he said.