According to New Telegraph, the service however, alleged that the smugglers have embarked on a campaign of calumny to blackmail it in its renewed onslaught against smuggling of contraband and fake goods, vehicles with fake documents and other illegalities, especially in the Southeast.
Public Relations Officer of the zone, Ifeoma Onuigbo, said in a statement in Owerri, the Imo State capital, that NCS would not be discouraged by falsehood and spurious allegations being churned out against its anti-smuggling operatives. She explained that the service made 32 seizures with Duty Paid Value of over N814 million last month. Onuigbo said that 21 cases were in court for September alone.
She said: “As a sequel to unrelenting onslaught against smuggling, duty evasion and other illegalities by smugglers, which is being fought by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone C, Owerri, smugglers of fake drugs have commenced a campaign of falsehood against the zone.
“They have now resorted to using human rights and faceless groups to attack the zone and alleging all sorts of things, including compromise against our unit in a recent national publication at a time the unit should be commended for raising the anti-smuggling tempo to a greater height. This act is not only illegal, but unpatriotic against Nigeria and the government of President Muhammadu Buhari that has not hidden its determination to stamp out all forms of corruption and fight against all the illegalities that has been drawing the country backward.”
The public relations officer said that they have demonstrated a senseless sympathy with economic saboteurs Onuigbo added that last month, NCS made an underpayment recovery of N26,272,009 into government coffers. According to her, intelligence had revealed that the present desperation by smugglers was borne out of the desire to make money from yuletide sales.
She stressed that the comptroller of the zone, Victor Dimka, had assure that the service would continue to encourage legitimate trade while frustrating unlawful imports and smuggling. Onuigbo added: “We are not surprised that these wild allegations are coming barely two weeks after we clamped down and stopped some merchants of deaths from bringing fake and deadly drugs into the country.
“We know that criminal cartels must fight back, but we know they are fighting a lost battle as we shall continue to interdict, seize prohibited and smuggled goods as well as arrest suspects involved in the acts within the law.
“We find it imperative to educate members of Campaign for Democracy (CD) and the public that government extant laws as enshrined in the Customs Excise Management Act (CEMA) and other enabling legislation. “We are not and will never be open for any form of dialogue to compromise our statutory duties. We advise Campaign for Democracy to visit our warehouse and show proof of any seizure wrongly made by presenting evidences of genuine duty payments,” Onuigbo said.
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