Activities at the Tin Can Island Port were in the early hours of Wednesday disrupted following a clash between officials of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and customs personnel over port access control.
NPA had on Tuesday commenced implementation of its port access control at the Tin Can Island Port, with assistance from the Port Police as part of effort to sanitize the port environment from unauthorized users.
The NPA security officials, as part of implementing the new order, had subjected port users and officials to strict scrutiny and those without port pass were denied access.
The situation, however, degenerated into a scuffle when a customs officer in mufti refused to identify and summit himself to checks on the request of the NPA officials, creating a scene and causing a long queue at the port gate.
“What happened was that NPA was trying to do the normal checking of authorized and unauthorized persons, then a customs officer came in mufti and in short but he refused to identify himself. The mobile police officers asked him to step aside for other people to be identified but he refused until he engaged in a scuffle with a mobile police at the gate.
“Eventually when he gained access, he went and told their enforcement unit and they came heavily armed and threw the gate open forcefully and people who were not supposed to come in all rushed in,” an eye witness said.