The Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service, NCS hardly commends officers, when he does, that officer must have proven himself hardworking and patriotic as the regiment demands.
Some say that’s the virtue Ali saw in Comptroller Mohammed Uba Garba, area controller, Seme Customs Command, when he redeployed him from the Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, Ikeja last year.
But critics of Comptroller Mohammed say he’s just very lucky, to have some powerful people in the NCS who always put in a word for him whenever critical decisions are to be made by the comptroller General.
The two groups of thoughts may not be far from the point.
But what is more germane is that Comptroller Mohammed has never let down his boss in Abuja.
Therefore, the controller did not just get the attention of the CG on a platter, it’s as a result of sheer hard work and patriotic duty to country.
That’s fair enough.
In fact the CG, at a time like this watchers of NCS says, requires officers who will not buckle under the pressure of border closure by the Buhari administration.
“The major source of income for smugglers is the illegal importation of rice from the Seme corridor.
But the closure has made life so unbearable for them.
How can you survive when your only source of income has been taken away? You look for other means. It doesn’t matter at what cost. What’s really important is survival at this point,” Kalu Benjamin, a security expert told the magazine.
Bearing this in mind, the smugglers quickly put their acts together by investing heavily, their time and capital in smuggling petrol from Nigeria into Benin Republic.
Before the border closure, the department of petroleum Resource, DPR estimated that between 60-65million litres of petrol was consumed daily in Nigeria.
What many Nigerians did not know is that a large chunk of this is smuggled into Benin and other neighboring countries by smugglers who feed on our collective paternity.
But all that is gradually becoming a thing of the past, according to various sources in the border, who salute the patriotic work of Comptroller Muhammed and his men, for making life difficult for petrol smugglers.
“Smuggling petrol through Seme border nowadays is like passing through the proverbial needle’s eye. With the joint operations of security agencies led by Customs, that business is no longer lucrative.
What benefits do you derive after going through so much inconvenience, your investment and everything, you still discovered that the products will be seized,” a trader along the border said, though he didn’t want his name mentioned.
The federal government had identified the loopholes and last month directed the closure of all filling stations close to the borders.
In spite of this, the smuggling of the commodity still went on unfettered along the Seme border, until Comptroller Mohammed alongside his men went to work, by conducting unexpected raids on the smugglers hideouts.
The results are now there for critics to see. The DPR has recently announced the drop of petrol consumption in the country to about 52million litre per day.
“If you cannot still see what the command is doing, then you must have yourself examined,” Yemi Adegbenro, a freight forwarder told the magazine on Monday.
The CG on his part has made sure that some officers, working selflessly with Comptroller Mohammed are rewarded for their patriotic duty despite a campaign of calumny, recently launched against the command and the area controller by destructive elements.
According to the recent promotion list released by NCS, three deputy comptrollers from the Seme command made it to the Comptroller rank, aside others who have now been elevated to higher ranks.
Jibo B.M, Ndarani J.D and Bello A. are some of the officers who have worked under Comptroller Mohamed and are now happily wearing the comptroller ranks.
“The joy of a leader is to see his subordinates rising and taking up higher responsibilities.
It’s not a coincident that some of us have now been promoted while Comptroller Mohammed is the area comptroller.
It means he gave good commendation of us apart from the promotion exam that we wrote,” an officer recently promoted to the rank of CSP told the magazine.
Comptroller Mohammed and his men have made sure revenue flows into the Federation Account for state and federal government to share.
For instance, when the NCS is taking stocks of its revenue for the year 2019, no doubt, the Seme Command will take a prime place because the command has been generating steady revenue into the commonwealth.
A whopping N6.5 billion, the command generated is one of the highest across the country.
“Ali will be very happy because he will have something to show his bosses in the Presidency that things are working in the NCS,” a source in the ministry of Finance told the magazine.
The NCS has projected to rake in over one trillion naira into the federation account by the end of the year.
The figure represents the revenue collection from January to November, 2019 according to checks by the magazine.
In spite of this feat Comptroller Mohammed has remained modest and focused on next year.
Other border commands have not been so lucky considering the fact that they have been experiencing revenue drought due to border closure.
Apart from the huge revenue collection the command “Within 11 months,” also “recorded 1302 seizures” of different categories” with duty paid value of over N1.5billion,” the controller said in a statement.
Within the period also “the command also realized N4.9billion revenue making a cumulative amount of over N6.5billion” aside “1992 parcels of hard drugs, 47 trailers of foreign rice, 62 used vehicles, 1100 bales of used clothes, 185 sacks of shoes, bags, 5489 cartons of poultry products, petrol, vegetables, oil and other items,” the command stated.
