A section of the Nigeria political class, the diplomatic corps, the academia, Port trading community, particularly freight forwarding and clearing operators and industry observers have come hard on the Nigeria Customs Service for it’s perceived failure to tighten the nuts on customs inspection processes, thereby exposing the country and its citizenry to great danger of insecurity posed by a seeming unfiltered influx of arms and ammunition through the entry border points.
A clearing agent at Seme border, Mr Segun Adeyinka, in a chat with our correspondent said, “ we have seen a government that has failed completely to arrest the widening threats to the lives of Nigerians, through the free flow of arms and ammunition because with the flax at the borders, the customs services seem unable to be in change.
He noted that part of the problems of leadership inefficiencies may be unconnected to poor appointment carried out on political considerations.
“Unfortunately the All Progressive Congress (APC) government does not give a hoot about allocating sensitive offices to very incompetent hands, because party members are determined to reap benefits even at the detriment of the nation. This is where we are today”, he said.
In our present level of insecurity, ordinary Nigeria will continue to pay the price even with their lives, until we have in place credible Political Leaders and Government that can offer solutions and plug the access to this free flow of arms and ammunition. When a nation live in fear everyday in spite of the fact that a security system is in place, you begin to wonder at the level of competence of the entire leadership train, politically, economically, security wise, policy wise and indeed our vision as a system.
“The last three years has sufficiently exposed us as a country without direction, with our security apparatus completely emasculated, together with the Customs and immigration services, we have reached a standstill, at the point of tragedy of purpose, and we are a dysfunctional system,” he posited.
While Barrister Lekan Joseph, a senior lecturer, at Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Lagos State does not see much hope for the country for as long as our leadership attitude and ethno-political learnings remain unchanged.