Customs reduces checkpoints in Ogun to obey FG policy

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By Olusola AJIBIKE (Abeokuta)

NIGERIA: THE Ogun State Area Command of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has pruned down its numbers of checkpoints.

The new Comptroller of the command, Michael Ojobo Agbara, disclosed this to newsmen in Idiroko while showing the seizures made by the command in the last two weeks of his resumption of office.

Agbara said that the reduction of checkpoints manned by the officials was geared towards achieving one of the core functions of the service and to passionately key into the federal government executive order on ease of doing business.

He explained that the officers and men earlier manning the removed checkpoints have been redeployed to the hinterlands to reinforce other officers.

According to him, he had visited and held critical meeting with stakeholders, including colleagues in Benin Republic, traditional rulers and other sister security agencies towards promoting synergy geared at effective and efficient service delivery.

The command, he further said, intercepted 3, 041 bags of foreign rice suspected to have been smuggled and 99 packs of Indian hemp since he assumed office.

Agbara, who was flanked by other officers at the command, also said that within the period under review, 295 kegs of smuggled vegetable oil, 221 kegs of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol), 24 smuggled second-hand vehicles and 28 bags of sugar were also seized.

The comptroller, who said that three bales of second-hand clothes were also intercepted, disclosed that four suspects were arrested in connection with the smuggling of the various prohibited items.

While noting that one of the suspects had been charged to court, Agbara, who assumed the leadership at the command last April 17, said the seizures were made in Abeokuta and Idiroko axis under his jurisdiction.

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