A joint border patrol team, sector IV of the Nigeria Customs Service (NSC) has revealed that it has seized a consignment of sex enhancement drugs worth ₦19.6 duty-paid value in Sokoto state.
The Coordinating Comptroller, Mr. Kolapo Oladeji who briefed newsmen in Sokoto yesterday, said that trucks carrying food items were also intercepted at Kajji community on the Sokoto-Kebbi road.
According to him; the intercepted truckloads of food items were heading to the Niger Republic through the Kebbi border, an action that contravened regulations.
“We will leave no stone unturned to block food smuggling out of the country because of the current situation in the country.
“We all know that prices of food items have skyrocketed because of the activities of some Nigerians. Our people are hungry, but they prefer to take the food to other countries despite the border closures imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
He assured that the Customs will continue to trail smugglers, and block their routes, adding that whoever is caught in the nefarious act will face the full wrath of the law.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has asserted that the agency never raised duties paid on imports, explaining that what it simply did was to aligned the rates with the new foreign exchange (FX) rate prescribed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Adewale Adeniyi who is the Comptroller General of the service, made this known in an interview on Arise Television which was monitored by Africa Today News, New York.
The customs boss explained that the decision was part of the “repercussions” of the CBN’s effort at enforcing a single FX window.
Recall that in December, the federal government increased import duties by as much as 22.24 percent, a development that operators said could worsen the inflationary trend in the country.