The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Ogun Area Command has responded against students in the state, advising them to concentrate on their studies rather than making “malicious charges” of alleged arms smuggling against the command.
On Thursday, it was reported that students in Ogun State had accused the NCS of importing weapons into the state.
The NCS, on the other hand, completely rejected the student’s assertions, calling them lies that could lead to misinformation and unneeded strife in the state.
“There has never been a time when Arms and Ammunition were allowed to be smuggled into the country through Ogun state and it will not be allowed to be smuggled in whatever form,” the NCS stated in a statement released on Friday by the Command’s Public Relations Officer, Hammed Oloyede.
Oloyede claimed that the command had subsequently reinforced the multiple unlawful ways via which contraband is smuggled into the country with aggressive patrols and stepped up anti-smuggling operations in the state to checkmate the state’s opponents’ nefarious actions.
“The tightened security architecture in the state today by Customs and other security agencies will not permit smuggling of contrabands and other prohibited items at night time not to talk of during the day,” the spokesman said, adding that the false claim of smuggling activities taking place during the day is only in the imagination of the story’s maker.
Since the start of the year, he added, the command has documented over 1,500 seizures of various contrabands and illegal things, including foreign rice, foreign used vehicles, shoes and apparel, tomato paste, Sativa (Marijuana), and petroleum products made for export.
The statement read in part, “In as much as the command does not want to join issues with the so-called students, their sponsors, and collaborators, we want to advise them to focus and concentrate on their studies and school activities so that they graduate in record time and be better citizens tomorrow, instead of offering and allowing themselves to be used as tools for blackmail of an individual and government institution.
“Oratorically, where were the authors of this malicious publication when officers and men of the Customs Service were being daily attacked with AK47 rifles, locally produced guns, pistols, and other dangerous weapons with charms by daredevil smugglers, who are their brothers and sisters, cousins and uncles in the state. In most of these attacks, officers are injured, killed and government properties destroyed (vehicles and buildings set ablaze). What did they do and what did they say? These are the same elements and groups that carried placards and demonstrated to the Government and State House of Assembly last year December 2020, alleging incessant killings of their citizens by customs, what hypocrisy.
“Let the general public know that these allegations are baseless, unfounded, mischievous, dangerously misleading, and aimed at causing distractions to our operations and security architecture in Ogun State and the country and should therefore be disregarded.”
