The Comptroller-General of Customs, Col.(rtd.) Hameed Ali, is billed to meet with the Turkish Ambassador to Nigeria today over the spate of arms imports which have been traced to the country.
The Customs boss disclosed this yesterday at the Tin Island port during unveiling of another 470 pieces of rifles intercepted at the port.
A visibly worried CGC disclosed that President Mohammed Burahi has given the Cusoms Authority to engage the Turkish Ambassasador over the disturbing trend and how to curb it.
It could be recalled that penultimate Monday, a large cache of 1100 pieces of rifles were intercepted at the same port and which origin was traced to Turkey.
In January this year, 49 boxes containing661 AK 47 were intercepted at the Apapa port while in May, another seizure of440 pieces of pump action rifles were discovered at Tin Can port.
Yesterday seizure make it 2671 rifled seized within the last nine months of the year.
‘’We have been able to establish that there is a syndicate in Turkey who is behind all these importations and President Buhari has taken up the matter at the highest level of government and has given us(Customs) the go-ahead to enage he Turkisk Ambassador in discussions on how to deal with the problem. Tomorrow (today), I shall be meeting with the Turkish Ambassador on the issue’’, the CGC disclosed.
He disclosed that the latest seizure was based on profiling as the arms laden in 20-footed container number CMAU189817/8, was tracked from Turkey to the Tin Can Port before it was picked.
“Following the increase in the number of arms seizures in recent times, the Customs Area Controller of Tin-Can Port, Comptroller, Yusuf Bashar, ordered a detailed profile of all imports, especially those coming from Turkey. Customs decided to follow profiling approach of 100 per cent examination on containers, especially those containers coming from Turkey.
“Tin-Can Customs command intercepted another 20ft container No CMAUI817/8 containing 470 pump action rifles, immediately the container landed from the port of origin to Nigerian ports.
“The terminal operators have been consequently directed to quarantine the container for analysis. “The container was later transferred to the Enforcement Unit of the command where 100 per cent examination revealed 470 pump action rifles,” Ali said.
According to Ali, the Bill of Lading of the container indicated Elbow Plumbing Plastics and noted that the importer of the cargo is Great Oil and Gas Ltd with the vessel named “MV Arkas Africa” owned by Hull Blyth.
He promised that Customs would now be responsive and capable of meeting the challenges being posed. Ali urged Nigerians to rise up and remain vigilant to deal decisively with the enemies of the country, adding that this was what the federal government required all citizens to do.
The CG assured Nigerians that customs officers were now on alert, following the directive he issued to all Customs area controllers.
Ali said that customs would continue to subject all containers to 100 per cent examination until 80 per cent of the Customs agents abide with global practices.
“We are going to subject all areas of Customs operations to 100 per cent examination to safeguard life of the citizens. He, however, said that since the container belonged to the same importer of 1,100 rifles intercepted on Sept.11, investigation was on-going to fish out those connected with the container’’, the CGC declared.