Smuggling refers to the clandestine transportation of goods or persons past a certain point, or across international borders, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. It is also defined as an act of importing or exporting goods illegally.
Smuggling is a parasitic element in the flesh of the Nigerian economy considering the amount of money that is lost to this illegal trade.
It has a long and controversial history, probably dating back to the first time duties were imposed in any form.Smuggling first became noticeable in the 13th Century in England, following the creation of a national customs collection system by King Edward I in 1275. Be that as it may, the consensus is that smuggling is a problem that must be properly addressed for the general good of the nation — both as a system and as a people.
It seems convenient, most of the time, to overtly express disapproval of smuggling just as people denounce other societal evils. What has not equally gained same level of expediency is the search for the factors that, first and foremost, lead to the existence of smuggling and addressing those factors down to their primary roots.
Not a few financial analysts say what the government should do in solving smuggling is not only to ensure increased number of guards at the various borders but also that the authorities should back security with liberalised policy on importation.
In an article in The Fronteira Post on October 23, 2008, Dr. Martin Oluba, President and Chief Executive Officer of ValueFronteira Limited, concurred that the main causes of smuggling should be searched for and addressed if truly government was sincere about tackling the problem.
According to him: “As is always the case even in handling other national issues, smuggling is viewed independently of its known drivers. The resulting effect is that solutions to the problem are either not found or are deliberately ignored. In most circumstances, it appears as if a hood is placed on the eyes of the solution designers so that they do not see clearly the various sources of the problem such that whatever solution that is being proffered is germane to adequately addressing the problem.”
Oluba, however, argued that the approach by government at stemming the problem was not the desired one, as the nation, according to him, spends more but gets nothing while the economy was losing the more and the lives of the people of the country were at higher risk.
“There are equally the issues of revenue lost in the process of tracking the smugglers, the loss of lives or health through the use of banned but smuggled products which are clearly harmful, etc. It is, however, important to realise that the dictum which says that ’a problem known is a problem solved’ is right.”
Sunday Vanguard investigations show that success in the fight against smuggling will only start with understanding the real drivers of smuggling; the institutional and policy connections in the process as well as understanding how those drivers could be managed.
And, the success of the fight is imperative because smuggling is costing government or, better put, the nation, billions of naira both in direct lost of revenue that would have been realised as taxes on legal importation of such goods or as taxes from the local companies which would have been protected in such a way that they would have been more competitive in their operations.
Sunday Vanguard visited Owode- Apa, a Nigerian border town in the Badagry-West Local Council Development Area, Lagos State, where a Customs officer, who insisted on anonymity, talked about the challenges smugglers’ activities posed to his agency at the border area.
“These people are very deadly and take up arms many a time against us. One thing that baffles me is that, much on ground as we always are, against their tactics, they never for once relented.”
In spite of government’s stringent security measures, the officer expressed concern that the smugglers invariably have not given a damn.
Idiroko-Sango-Ota and Ado-Odo-Atan roads are notorious for smugglers’ activities because those are the major roads they ply while bringing their smuggled items from Cotonou, Benin Republic’s main commercial nerve-centre, into Nigeria. Sunday Vanguard had a hectic time trying to get a word from any of them, during their stop-over on one of the routes.
“You wan com get information from us make you go give Customs say we dey? Dis go cost you much o, my broda,” the driver of one of the cars carrying bags of rice from Cotonou into Nigeria said. Considering the nature of the environment, deep forest side of the road, we devised a jovial approach to secure their confidence and get them to talk. It worked and so, the driver was asked by his colleagues to talk; he eventually spoke in Yoruba.
“We that you see here are not the owners of these things. We are only transporters and the reason we are waiting here is because of Customs officers that are on the road,” he said.
Asked for how long they were staying thinking the dreaded Customs’ officers would leave the road, he said, “Look, oga journalist, you see that we are many here and we have our phones with us through which we will be contacted by the owners of the items when they are through with the Customs men on the road. That time we will begin to drive into the market.” He refused to mention the particular market that was the destination of the items.
At a separate forum, a woman importer of rice and groundnut oil from Cotonou bared her mind on how smugglers operate. She, however, did not refer to herself as a smuggler but an importer. And, she had a reason for that. She claimed that for each trip, her union pays Customs officers on that route, about N200,000. She, however, did not state which particular smugglers’ route.
Probed further on why rice was still sold at high prices in spite of the fact that people like her had the means of bringing in the items through the borders, she laughed.
Her words: “Inside ship in Cotonou, we buy a bag of rice at an equivalent price of N3,000. All costs added, it crosses into the Nigerian side of the border at N5,000. It is the expenses we incur between that point and destination that shoot the price up to N7,200 or more that you now see.”
On why she refused to accept her activity as smuggling, she said she and her group submit their goods for security check and that there was a certain amount they pay after which they are issued papers clearing them. She added that goods that pass through the borders are not necessarily sub-standard, urging government to liberalise its policy on importation via ports or border so that Nigerians can have access to good living.
She, however, acknowledged that the trade becomes smuggling when people evade due process and come in through illegal routes. She confessed that duties charged at the border are exorbitant but declined to mention any figure.
Getting the real smugglers to talk on how they do it yielded no fruit. But, in the absence of that, a former smuggler would suffice. The reporter met him in Ikeja in his light mood.
“Oh, when we used to do it, I worked for some businesswomen who used to bring rice and other things from Cotonou into the Nigerian market. We used to move in a convoy of about five, sometimes 10 vehicles and we would have drunk and smoked ourselves to the peak so we could act effectively.”
He said smuggling is not an easy thing because, according to him, it involves a lot of preparations:
“Charms produced by very knowledgeable herbalists, some worked for disappearance; some worked for Customs not being able to arrest you and so on.
“We also had what they call ayeta (bullets dodger) but we still had to be smart and move at top speed because there are times when Customs’ bullets did make nonsense of the charms and in the process we lost some of our colleagues.”
He also spoke about car smugglers: “Theirs was the most dangerous because they always had to move fully armed and sometimes in the process of over-speeding to beat Customs check or arrest, they would run over human beings and escape.”
A former anti-smuggling chief, Mr. Ade Fadahunsi, told Sunday Vanguard that smuggling is deeper than what is seen on the surface.
The former assistant comptroller-general of Customs explained that smugglers will find it difficult to quit the business because the penalty or sanction meted out to offenders is too mild, adding that the weight of punishment is not enough to deter them (smugglers) from the illicit trade.
“A situation where an arrested smuggler is taken to court and made to pay N6 fine is ridiculous. Until the law against smuggling is reviewed and stiffer sanctions put in place, these criminals will continue to have a field day at the expense of the economy”, he added.
Fadahunsi, who was head of the nation’s anti-smuggling squad, stated that smuggling is so well-organised that it will be difficult for any government to completely eliminate the menace.
He explained that until the law is reviewed and somebody is made to face the music, government battle to stem smuggling will be nought. He disclosed that smugglers are very creative and daring when they carry out their operations, noting that each time men and officers of the Customs beat them to their game, they come up with new methods of moving their merchandise around.
Besides, Fadahunsi stated that smugglers carry weapons that are sometimes more sophisticated than those of Customs officers.
He stated, “Most times when we encounter these boys, it is like a battle-field because they know that when we overpower them, their goods and their entire investments are gone and so they will do everything possible to protect the goods even with their lives.
“Quite a good number of officers have lost their lives to smugglers but that has not deterred the Nigeria Customs Service from giving them a run for their money.”
The Osun State-born anti-smuggling expert also advised that the porousness of the nation’s borders should also be looked into as smugglers take advantage of the fact that the borders lack security.
In the last five years, the Customs has seized contrabands running into several billions of naira. Some of the items like poultry products were destroyed, others auctioned while the unusable ones were abandoned to rot away.
Less than three weeks after the Western Marine Command (WMC) of the Customs intercepted a consignment of suspected cheap generic substandard medicaments, the Command confiscated a consignment of frozen poultry products estimated at N9 million, after a confrontation with smugglers on the Badagry-Lagos waterways.
Recently, the Apapa Area 1 Command of the Customs and the Joint Task Force on 100 per cent examination of goods, intercepted textiles materials, machine spare parts and home appliances concealed in 23 containers.
Head, Joint Task Force on 100 per cent Examination of Cargos, Comptroller Eporwei Charles Edike, who disclosed this in Lagos, said the’ seizures have a total Duty Paid Value (DPV) of over N1 billion.
He explained that 11 containers were intercepted within Apapa port with seven additional containers, which they got wind of while examining the 11 containers.
Edike, who was the immediate past Customs Area Controller (CAC), PTML Command, Tin Can Island Port (TCIP), Apapa, Lagos, added that four other containes were seized in the Rivers State capital, Port Harcourt, while one container was impounded at TCIP, making a total of 23 containers within the same period. He said. “The total DPV is over N1 billion and over N100 million has been issued as debit note (DN), out of which N51 million has been paid already.
”The Task Force was inaugurated by the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Alhaji Inde Dikko Abdullahi, and the reason for setting up this body has been achieved because there is increase in revenue generation and anti-smuggling campaign aimed at curtailing the influx of contrabands.”
The Customs chief stated that the Task Force, which is under his command, operates in Lagos and Port Harcourt to cover the Eastern Zone of the country.
“Aside from Lagos and Port Harcourt, there is another Task Force covering the Northern parts of the country. The initiative is to curtail the influx of offensive goods coming into the economic environment illegally. Some of these containers were impounded as a result of conveying contraband. While some are for false and wrong declaration of goods concealed in them,” he said.
On whether the new Task Force was set up to take over the official duties of NCS, he said: “The Task Force comprises customs officials, members of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), as well as officers of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC). We work hand in hand with resident Customs officials in the command to achieve success. Our operations still follow the established guidelines.”
The Area Controller of the Western Marine Command, Comptroller Mamman Bah, told Sunday Vanguard that Customs will continue to exercise zero-tolerance for any trade infractions, which will jeopardise the efforts of government (FG) to grow the local livestock industry.
According to him, ”The Federal Government is very serious about its laws that ban the importation of frozen chickens and turkeys. This law is to protect our local poultry farms and, indeed, our livestock industry. If foreign poultry is allowed in, I am sure you know what the implication will be for us all and our economy, our local industry cannot survive.
“It is the duty of the government through the Customs Service to protect our local industries. We will apprehend and destroy seized items as we are doing now, anytime, anywhere, and prosecute offenders wherever we succeed in apprehending them.
“These smugglers are vicious and well-armed, they fight and attack us to secure their illegal wares, and, you know, on our side, we have the capability to withstand their attacks and, in fact, embark on thorough offensive, but, as an economic agency, our role is to abate criminality and so, we are always very tactical during operations and we do try to avoid open confrontation whenever we can.”
He narrated that in their latest encounter, ’‘one of the smugglers tried to drown one of my officers by dragging him out into the water where they had a serious scuffle.”
He was of the opinion that with the right logistics such as Seafarer gun boat,” we will be able to repel smugglers much more effectively and do much more sea and waterways patrol. The Comptroller-General’s standing order to me, which is a tradition anyway, is that during operations, my focus is to intercept illegal trade, arrest and or repel smugglers, and, when under attack, apply defence tactics, in which case we can only shoot or return attack for attack as a last resort.”
On the problem posed by smuggling to the economy, the President of the Importers Association of Nigeria (IMAN), Mr. Okeze Okereke, noted that some officials of the national task force on the importation of contraband, small arms and illegal goods had to be relieved of their duties because of their connivance with smugglers.
He argued that the arms smuggled into this country has reached an alarming rate hence the creation of the task force to checkmate the illicit act.
“That was the reason we removed some members of the task force because these people connived with smugglers.
“When these boys make any arrest, the people will go behind to discuss with the smugglers and before you know it the arms we are trying to stop from coming find their way into the country,” he added.
Revenue of seized of goods & vehicles from Sept-Dec 2010
Month TOTAL VALUE DUTY DPV
SEIZURE N N N
1. September 250 122,246,200 34,702,360 156,948,560
2. October 310 180,083,500 36,516,775 216,600,275
3. November 280 162,928,010 34,391,702 197,219,712
4. December 317 287,249,750 62,695,002 366,133,541
5. Total 1,157 752,507,460 168,305,839 920,813,299
By GODWIN ORITSE & BASHIR ADEFAKA
No comments:
Post a Comment