By Stephen Ubanna

In spite of the tight security at the  nation’s border  Communities  with  Republic of Benin, smugglers appear to have devised new tactics to beat Customs personnel to it  at the checkpoint . The smugglers were  said to have resorted to the use of bunkers built into their buses or vehicles to smuggle foreign parboiled rice, vegetable oil  and textiles into the country.

The Magazine learnt that this had been the practice over the years at Seme axis  as thousands of bags of foreign  parboiled  rice, Vegetable oil and bales of textiles were smuggled into the Nigeria market  through the Lagos   – Seme  Express Way or through the waterways.

The situation was said to be so bad at Seme until the deployment of Muhammed Aliyu and Muhammed  Uba Garba as Comptrollers of Seme Command and Federal Operations Unit, FOU, Zone A, Ikeja respectively.

Muhammed, the Comptroller of FOU, Zone A, who was said to have tightened up security along the Lagos end of the Seme land border station , may have forced his counterpart,  Aliyu, to be on the offensive against the smugglers in the area.

The Seme Comptroller  was said to have drawn close to the Youths and Community leaders in the  area  who may have furnished him with  the  tactic of smugglers which involved the use of in- built bunkers into vehicles by smugglers to carry out their nefarious activities.

The recent seizure  of the in-built bunker bus used in smuggling rice and textiles along the border route , speaks volume. This is because  at  Seme are said have been put on the alert to forestall vehicles with inbuilt bunkers from smuggling prhibited  goods  into the country.

It was learnt the smugglers  of the seized bunker bus loaded with rice and bales of textiles, but for the operational experience o could have escaped f Aliyu, the Command Comptroller who was in constant touch with the patrol team stationed along the route of the smugglers.  of bags of rice and bales of textile materials were said to have been neatly parked into the bunker which could only be deciphered by a diligent Customs officer on the road.

Given an insider information,  Taupyen Selchang, a Chief Superintendent of Customs and the Command Image maker  disclosed that within the last three months , the Command had  made numerous seizures, ranging from Poultry products, foreign parboiled rice, and textile materials valued at  about N12.30 million.

Selchang disclosed ever since it became known them that smugglers  are  reconstructing their means of  conveyance  for concealment to facilitate easy passage  at Customs checkpoints along the road, the Command had reviewed its operational network to thwart their efforts, stressing that” it is yielding results”.

An Insider told the Magazine that  the Seme land border could have been a no go area for smugglers but for the fact that the resident officers and the FOU A , Zone officers are said to be working at cross-purposes.

The source disclosed that there is a story building opposite the  Igbeleri road where  scores of smuggled rice from the Seme axis are stock piled daily. A source told the Magazine that the  area  is like a big market every evening as customers troop in and out to buy rice or vegetable oil.  He disclosed that most Customs  patrol teams are aware that  such  a place exists for stock piling smuggled foreign parboiled bags of rice but there is nothing much they could do about it.

A  senior FOU, Zone  A, officer told the  Magazine that   Seme Command officers should be blamed for the lapses  over the continuous smuggling of rice or other prohibited into the country though the land border. The officer stated that they are not privy to the examination of cargoes at the Command Examination to know the goods loaded into the truck.

He  revealed that the only contact they have with the truck drivers was the SGD form which must be dropped at the Checkpoint for record purposes. The Magazine witnessed the discharging of a truckload of Vegetable oil  between Iyana-Oba and Alaba international market Wednesday, April 2, 2018 from a truck. The Magazine attempt to take the picture with his phone was frustrated by thugs in area.

Many  believe that the high rate of smuggling rice, Vegetable along the Seme axis may not be unexpected because of the low volume of cargo imports through the land border, which was attributed to scarcity of forex.

Ekene Oyebuchi, a Lagos based business and   major transporter at Seme  land border confirmed  that cargo imports through the land border had dropped significantly as many of their trucks are virtually wasting at the border for lack of goods to carry.  Before, Onyebuchi’s trucks  were always on the road with go ods including raw materials to deliver to Customers.   One of the Companies that was said to be booking for the services of the transporter all the time was the Ibadan based Nigeria-America Tobacco Company. The demand for the transporter services by Customers may have forced him to always place orders for spare parts from the oversea suppliers to always keep the trucks in top form.

A visitor to the Transporter’s  Truck mechanical workshop would be surprised at the the level of repair work going on there but the volume of work had dropped because of the drop in volume of cargoes carried.

Perhaps, what may have caused the drop in imported goods through the land border  may not be unconnected to the fact that most of the  importers  using the Cotonou port in Republic of Benin  are not compliant to  the government fiscal policy measures.

Aliyu, the Seme Command Comptroller may have made things worse for the importers by getting classified information on goods loaded into the trucks from the trans-loading point which  forced many of them out of the importing business for fear of losing their trucks loaded goods to FOU, Zone , anti-smuggling officers on the road.

2019:Buhari Widening The Gulf With Nigerians

By Stephen Ubanna

President Muhammadu Buhari may have played into the hand of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and other political leaders, when he invoked a curse on Nigeria former Political leaders for mismanaging the economy of  the country. ”God will Judge Nigeria past  Political leaders who squandered the resources of the nation with nothing to show  for it: no  roads, no electricity or functional rail lines.

Buhari had alluded to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, 16  years of misrule  that includes the eight year  rule of  former President obasanjo when he said that between 1999  and 2014, the country produced 2.2 mbd when the price of a barrel of oil at the  international oil market  then was at least $100.

Godwin Emefiele, CBN, the governor  of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, may have provided the ammunition for him to say ”God will judge past political leaders for mismanaging the resources of the nation over the years.

”I went to  the governor of CBN  on assumption of office  and asked him how far and he said ” nothing was left apart from debts”. I  had reminded him of the revenue generated within the period from the sale of Crude Oil in the United States, Europe  and the Asian countries of China and India  which he confirmed but disclosed that ”all is gone”.

This is may have forced him to say  ” only God will judge this thing”. Many believe that his major  target of the  attack were former Presidents Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan of the then  ruling PDP. Many see the President’s emotional outbursts as a bottled anger against duo, particular obasanjo, over his open  letter to him last January on the state of the nation and urging him not to run for the 2019 Presidential election.

It would be recalled that  former President Obasanjo  was  among  the power brokers who endorsed Buhari of the All Progressive Congress, APC, which facilitated his victory over the then sitting President Jonathan.

Aware that he has lost the support of Obasanjo for his Presidential bid in,2019, his supporters  may have gone back to the drawing board to link  the former President with the alleged endorsement of Buhari to run for 2019.  The  former President  may not have  the claim funny as he was forced to come out harsher on him.  ”He is a failure and unworthy of a second term in 2019”, Obasanjo had said on Wednesday, April 2, 2018.

He stressed that” the mediocre  performance of Buhari in the last three years cannot be described as superlative by anybody even by morons”. The former President, who is known for speaking out on national issues when it matters assured Nigerians that he has not endorsed Buhari re-election bid , insisting that he cannot ”endorse failure.

in apparent reaction to his recent visit to the United States on the invitation of Donald Trump, Obasanjo described it as a waste as nothing was achieved  from it for the country. ” Buhari bungled another opportunity to  self-redeem”, he had said.  the visit , he said only succeeded  in making mockery of Nigeria as Trump  confirmed that the US will continue to reduce purchase of Crude Oil from Nigeria but will export Agricultural products to Nigeria , which the president nodded in approval.

He may have described as an indictment on the Buhari’s government over the directive given to him by Trump  to  ”stop all the killings  taking place in Nigeria by herdsmen”. There is no gain saying the fact that the President had attributed the killings to expatriate herdsmen trained late President Mummar Quadaffi of Libbya, noting that  ”no Nigeria is to blame and Buhari cannot do anything to stop it”.

The World Bank may have given a killer punch to Buhari re-election bid  when it said that ”unemployment and poverty had increased in the country despite  the government’s claim of exit of recession  in the economy in 2017. Kemi Adeosun and Udoma Udo Udoma, ministers of Finance and National Planning respectively as well as Emefiele, the CBN, governor could not hesitate in telling the World/IMF, officials, at their various meetings that recession is over in Nigeria, stating that the economy has picked up .

The Brettoon Wood  financial institution in  its latest report on Nigeria fragile economic recovery” had said that  the ”decline in the non-oil and non-Agricultural sectors  of the economy had continued as aggregate demand  remained weak and private sector credit  low. The president  may have to convince Nigerians that he is not failure to actualize his 2019 re-election bid. The Christian Association of Nigeria , CAN, may be warming  up to participate fully in the 2019 election.

Already, Supo Ayokunle, President, CAN, in his efforts to ensure that the right Candidate would be elected as President of Nigeria in 2019, has urged members across the country on the need  for them to fully participate this time around by to trooping out in mass to obtain their  voters card with which  to play a role in the emergence of new set of political leaders .

Ayokunle may hit the nail on the head when he said that Nigerians need a leader would” guarantee their security and safety”.  This is where Buhari may have to do  more work as Nigerians may have lost interest in his capability to deal with the notorious  armed herdsmen who have been innocent citizens, particular Christians in Benue, Taraba, Adamawa, Plateau, Nasarawa and Zamfara states. the recent killing of two priests in Benue state bear eloquent testimony to nefarious activities of the herdsmen who have no respect for human life.

The killing spree of the armed herdsmen in parts of the country is not different from the killings of the Boko Haram insurgents in adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, their traditional areas of operation.  The worry of most people  was that Buhari had ridden to promise on the promise to stop the Killings in the north north east within six months in office.  He had declared severally that the Islamic Fundamentalists had been technically defeated. But that was how far he could go, as the insurgents had continued to make mockery of the government tight security network in the region to launch attacks.

Only recently, 68 people were killed in twin suicide bombing  in a Mosque in Mubi town in Adamawa state. The suicide bomber was said to have detonated explosives at the Mosque during Afternoon Prayers, forcing worshippers to scamper for safety. Indeed, the last time that so many people were killed in an attack  blamed on Boko Haram, was in Borno state  in  in 2016, when at least 90 people were killed in Dalori, at the outskirts of Maiduri, the Capital. The incessant killings in the  country  may have put the President in  a tight corner to convince  Nigerians that he can do really do the job.