In 2007, Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) established an office at Cotonou in Benin Republic to monitor and assist their Benin counterparts in checking contrabands coming in as ETLS goods but today the reverse is the case. The good initiative of the then Comptroller-General, Elder Buba Gyang is not yielding any results considering the rate of influx of such contraband goods through the busy Seme border.

Just like Shaki in Oyo State and Idiroko in Ogun State, Seme is the border between Nigeria and Benin Republic and is unarguably the busiest of the three borders.

Importers of Nigeria-bound goods through the Cotonou Port now see Seme as a most viable entry point either for duty evasion or concealment of prohibited items. Most items that fall under the Federal Government’s import prohibition list or as statutorily barred from entering the country through the land borders find their way in through Seme.

The Tide investigation reveals that these items come in trickles and in bulk depending on who is bringing them into Nigeria. The volume of the imports for which revenue is lost on the part of the government may far outweigh the generated revenue and create an adverse effect on government policy to encourage local production of some of the products.

Our investigations also revealed that there are also unmanned areas that present a blank cheque situation to smugglers. These areas are not policed by Customs men either for fear of confrontation by die-hard smugglers or Customs men who chose to look the other way after compromising their positions for smugglers to have a field day.

The film trick of textile seizures at Seme border is a tip of the iceberg as assorted clothings are brought into Alaba market on a daily basis.

This development may have contributed adversely to the massive loss of job that has hit the nation’s once vibrant textile industry.

Over 90 per cent of the membership of the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers (NUTGW) have been lost to the menace of smuggling and the textile industry is close to dying in Nigeria.

The 100 road blocks by Federal Operations Units Zone A (South West) Customs has not helped as prohibited clothing flood our markets.

Textile merchants besiege Alaba Rago daily to take delivery of consignments of different types of clothing.

Ironically, it is noted for being one of the most viable border stations in Nigeria with a high revenue generation profile and increasing volume of seizures, other things that happen behind the scene leave much to be desired.

From the large-scale concealment in trucks purportedly laden with dutiable goods to the fleet of vehicles under prohibition and smuggled items that come in under the cover of darkness, Seme border is indeed a place to watch, if the economy of the nation must be protected.

An instance is the effect of rice smuggling on the Nigerian economy. Local rice merchants, under the aegis of Rice Millers, Importers and Distributors of Nigeria (RMIDN) have often expressed displeasure over the upsurge in the smuggling of rice into Nigeria through Cotonou, Republic of Benin.

According to RMIDN, Nigeria has lost an estimated N50 billion as a result of rice smuggling.

Most Indian and Thailand rice that are imported into Cotonou find their way to Nigeria illegally with Seme border serving as gateway to the highest degree of these illicit imports.

Some Nigerian dealers on the product aver that about 5000,000 metric tones of rice are smuggled into the country through Benin annually. This trend is frustrating to Nigerians who have invested massively in rice production and legitimate importation through approved seaports after paying appropriate duty charges into government coffers.

Local production of this grain will remain imperiled except a closer tab is placed on Seme border and other possible areas of leakage as stakeholders in the genuine rice business now see that entry point is their major threat.

A source close to the borders, who prefers anonymity, told The Tide that the government has however not shown commitment in its resolve to make its policy on rice work.

He explained that price differential between imported rice smuggled into Nigeria through Cotonou and the ones that come through the approved Nigerian seaports are as high as N2,000. He argued that the need for the government to review Nigerian port charges to make them competitive with the Cotonou port has become imperative.

This price differential has not helped the government’s purported drive to stop smuggling. The much talked about Common External Tariff (CET) has also not been able to address this trend.

Smugglers and buyers rendezvous for rice coming through Seme are the Alaba-Rago Market, Iyana –Era, Iyana-Iba, all located on the Lagos –Badagry expressway and other parts of the country.

The volume of poultry products through the border is no doubt far from abating. Whereas, the command attempts to destroy seized poultry products particularly frozen chicken and turkeys, a glaring fact remains that these poultry products flood our local markets having found their way from Cotonou to Lagos.

The retaining of the poultry products to direct consumers start from Seme to every other part of Lagos. Some smugglers break their bulk at the borders while others ship them as far as Port-Harcourt and the entire South Eastern states.

At Mazamaza, a popular inter-state motor park for South East bound luxury buses, there are buses waiting to ship as much as 6000 cartons of poultry products to Port Harcourt, Aba, Owerri enroute the South East.

The Tide finding can authoritatively reveal that a consignment of about 600 cartons of poultry products shipped in a bus could belong to about 2 to 3 persons. Over six of these big buses leave Lagos for various destinations on daily basis.

Some turkey and chicken laden buses also do transporting in textile materials, used tyres that come in through the connivance of some officials of the Customs Services.

Some of these contraband laden buses get seized while in transit out of Lagos by men of the Federal Operation Units of the Customs. These seizures have often times been paraded by Comptroller Victor Dimka, the F.O.U Zone A. comptroller.

Along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, precisely at two points-Gbaji and Agbara, Customs officials manned check points and collect various sums from smugglers before allowing their goods in. These checkpoints are jointly mounted by the resident officers of Seme border Customs and Federal Operation Unit.

It therefore, becomes ironical when goods for which “settlement” was paid to Customs at the Seme Border, Gbaji Bridge and Agbara get seized by F.O.U.

Aside the issue of compromise on the part of the Customs, there is also the factor of negligence due to the lack of Customs presence in places like Fara Seme and Ponraele. Fara –Seme, a border town is dreaded by government agencies. This has resulted to the place becoming a route for unfettered smuggling activities.

Ponraele, from our investigation, is a rendezvous for dare –devil smugglers that may resolve to confront Customs forces, should there be an attempt by the Customs to stop their operations. It is in fact a storage point for large-scale consignment before they are shipped into the country at night or concealed with dutiable items by day after “settlement”.

Operatives of the Customs avoid going close to Ponraele for the purpose of performing the enforcement functions except those who go to indulge with the smugglers for the purpose of mapping out strategies and taking of hard drugs like Indian hemp.

Outside of these functions, the Seme command of Nigerian Customs Service tends to have enshrined in its duties other acts that are anti-people and other vices capable of devastating the economy which they are established to uplift.