The Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs
Service (NCS), Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), on Wednesday urged Nigerians to endure short-term
pains in order to enjoy long-term gains from the partial closure of the country's
land borders.
This is as the NCS announced the seizure of 99
containers valued at N2.03 billion from its two area commands in Port Harcourt.
Addressing journalists after an inspection of the
seized items at the Customs Area II Command in Onne, Rivers State, Ali noted
that many Nigerians are complaining of hardship arising from the border
closure.
He said many people have stated that the time was
not ripe for the closure of the borders as the government was yet to provide
the necessary infrastructure to encourage local production of needed goods.
According to him, "There will never be a good
time. The decision to close the border is ripe; we don't need to have 100
percent electricity or good roads before we take the step. Most importantly is that we must be able to
bear the initial pains in order to stabilise and have long term successes.
"We don't have to eat rice everyday. There are
other alternative foods. I assure you that the price will stabilise and the
ordinary farmers will have value for their farming business."
The Customs comptroller general also advised
Nigerians to be wary of rating imported foreign rice as most them currently in
the market are expired and are re-bagged, after polishing them with chemicals.
"All those things they are bringing into our
country are aimed at bringing us to our knees. We must reach out to Nigerians
for them to know the deadly effect of what they are consuming.
"We are consuming expired foreign rice. When
it causes cancer, we would begin to find who to blame. What they (importers) do
is that they polish and re-bag the rice after polishing it with chemicals for unsuspecting
consumers to eat," he stated.
Ali also said there was need to dredge the country's
ports to allow big ships access in order to boost maritime revenue in the
country.
He said: "The problem is that we don't have a
deep sea port. Most of the big ships, when they come, they discharge on the
high sea because our ports are not deep, then we have to use barges to evacuate
them.
"It is a big challenge that none if the five
ports in the country is deep. This is an issue the government needs to tackle.
So the government needs to tackle it and make the ports accessible for big
ships as well as make them viable.
"Dredging the Calabar, Warri, Cross Rivers and
Lagos Ports is an investment which the government needs to make to boast the
maritime revenue."
On the people arrested for importing fake, sub-standard
expired goods, Ali said they would be prosecuted after full investigations to
serve as deterrent to others.
Meanwhile, Ali has said NCS seized 99 containers valued at
N2.03 billion in its two Area Commands in Port Harcourt.
The Customs, he said, seized 11 containers in Port Harcourt
Area I Command while it confiscated 87 at Area II, Onne Port.
He said: "Port Harcourt Area 1 Command has effected
seizures of 1530kg Pangolin Scales falsely declared as Shale (raw material for
analysis) for export and captured on SGD No. E296 of 01/10/2019 with Air Way
Bill No. 172-9474-8124 by Divine Help International Limited (the declarant) on
behalf of Optimal Logistics Limited (the exporter),” adding that the items have
a black market value of N826, 200,000.00.
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