Customs makes u-turn, releases N300bn seized contraband goods

stories by FUNSO OLOJO

The Nigeria Customs Service may have goofed on its well- publicized jumbo seizure of textile materials said to be worth more than N300billion from Chinese importers in Kano.
Last month, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko, had flew into Kano from Abuja to  supervise a well- orchestrated joint operations with the Nigeria Immigration Service to seal up about 75 warehouses said to contain contraband textile material claimed to have illegally been brought into the country.
The two government agencies make a meal of the event as the immigration authority declared that three out of the five Chinese involved in the importation did not enter the country legally, vowing to deport them.
However, one month after what Customs source described as a ”monumental seizure”, the Customs authority seemed to have beaten a retreat and reversed itself when it allegedly released the seized goods to its importers.
The release of the goods were said to have been made possible through mutually agreed terms reached between the Customs authority, the leadership of Kantin Kwari textile market and the importers.
It was gathered that the Customs initially asked the importers to pay 25 percent duty but later backed down to five per cent after much persuasion from the influential s importers.
Some of the textiles were allegedly handed back to their owners on the agreement that they come back to pay the duties, when they succeed in disposing the materials.
The Publicity Secretary, Kantin Kwari Textile Market Association, Nura Idris Maliya, who described the sealing of the warehouses by officers and men of the Nigeria Customs as embarrassing, said it was impossible to have imported such large cache of textiles into the country without paying the accrued royalties into government coffers.
Nura said the unsealing of the sealed warehouses and the circulation of the textiles at Kantin Kwari and its bordering markets would bring down the inflated prices of textile materials in Kano, neighbouring states and West Africa.
Stakeholders however expressed surprise at the new twist in the celebrated seizure and wondered why the goods said to be contraband should later be released to the owners.
“Textile materials are contraband goods which are liable to seizures and the owners of the goods prosecuted. The sudden release of the textiles to its owners after the CGC had proclaimed as contraband and rightly so,  is confusing”, a frontline Customs broker, who craved for anonymity, observed.
However, a Senior Customs source told our reporter that the Customs authority released the goods based on the new tariff system which may have removed textile material from prohibition list.
But industry commentators wondered why the CGC, who is supposed to be the custodian and repository of Customs laws should act ignorantly of the so called new law.
”Does that mean he was not aware of the new law, if actually there was any, as the head of Customs or he wanted to use the celebrated seizure to worm his way into the heart of President Buhari to escape a possible replacement”, another freight forwarder declared.
Wale Adeniyi, the National Public Relations officer of Customs said the agency will formally react to the strange development today.
”We shall officially react to the situation tomorrow (today)”, Adeniyi insited even when pressed further to explain the new twist of event in the jumbo seizure.
It could how ever be recalled that the Customs boss has criticized the decision of the Federal government to remove African print from prohibition list, saying the Customs was not aware of the decision.
He was speaking in Abuja last week at a meeting with manufacturers of textile materials.
The Customs boss, during the raid in Kano, had become livid with a righteous indignation and vowed to distribute the seized contraband to the internally-displaced persons in the North-East.
“I initiated the raid of the warehouses from my office in Abuja based on information in order to salvage our economy. Only one of the warehouses worth is N4.2bn and if you multiply it by 75, you will get the worth of the seizure we have made.”
“If you recall during the Obasanjo administration, over 200 trailers of contrabands were burnt here in Kano and over 400 others were burnt in Lagos. So I will report the situation to the federal government for them to take a decision on it,”
“We are doing our best and they are doing their worst. Even if all the 170 million Nigerians are deployed to our borders, they cannot stop smuggling,” he had declared.