The faint hope that the Nigeria Customs Service will turn over a new leaf after an outsider was appointed as the head of the agency in 2015 is steadily fading. Although under the incumbent Comptroller-General, Hameed Ali, revenue generation has appreciated, yet also have impunity and brutality by the officers worsened. Again, hot-headed Customs officers have shot a man dead and injured a pregnant woman. True, the NCS has a noble mandate to eradicate smuggling and collect duties, but that ought to be done without infringing on the right to life and liberty of innocent Nigerians.
The two incidents, which occurred in Lagos and Ogun states, are familiarly gory. In pursuit of rice and used car smugglers, Customs operatives shot a bus conductor dead on a bus in Abule-Egba, Lagos, early in the morning of January 17. The operatives reportedly fired arbitrarily, not minding that they were in the midst of people. In the second episode, about 24 hours on and a few kilometres from Lagos in Iyana-Iyesi, Ogun State, an eight-month-pregnant Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company employee, Bukola Olugunna, was shot by Customs men from the Federal Operations Unit, Ikeja, who were chasing car smugglers. She was on her way to work. Instead, she found herself in the hospital fighting for survival.
However, the NCS defended its officers. In a statement issued by Jerry Attah, it denied the killing. It said Customs officials traced a bus loaded with smuggled rice to Abule-Egba, but that the driver of the bus incited a mob to attack its personnel with broken bottles, stone and cutlasses.
While the United States Customs and Border Patrol operations are restricted to the 160-kilometre zone to check goods, Customs operations in Nigeria reach practically every nook and cranny of the country. NCS check-points are noticeable on the highways. They seize vehicles at these check-points, although the vehicles escaped their scrutiny in the first place at the borders. This arbitrariness entrenches corruption as bribes exchange hands in the process.
On the pretext of chasing smugglers, Customs officers have frequently painted the Nigerian landscape with the blood of the innocent. In May 2017, during their interception of two vehicles conveying contraband, they shot dead a suspected smuggler at Tollgate, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Ogun State. Last October, Paul Ayomaya, who was riding a motorcycle and was about to move into his new house, was gunned down by Customs officers in Ajilete, a border town in Ogun State. In March 2017, another man was shot dead by NCS men in the Siun-Sagamu-Abeokuta Expressway. The list of atrocities is inexhaustible, it seems.
More than two years after Ali assumed office, Customs operations are still bogged down by ineptitude. Officers still inspect imports at the seaports manually, with reports that a majority of the scanners are malfunctioning. The delays fuel sleaze, with goods cleared randomly. It is why four consignments of lethal arms imports escaped at the seaports in Lagos in 2017 before they were later intercepted in the Lagos metropolis. A note by the World Bank states that for customs operations to be efficient, grow the economy and lift the people out of poverty, it must operate on a 24-hour basis. According to the World Bank, Nigeria lost $5 billion to smuggling through the borders with Benin Republic in 2011.
Evidence that the NCS is deficient is glaring. A 2016 Logistics Performance Index survey by the World Bank rated the Nigeria Customs 90 out of 160 countries. The NCS’s score of 2.46 (out of five marks) pales into insignificance in comparison with the world’s best customs agencies. Singapore’s customs ranks as the most efficient with a score of 4.18; Germany and the Netherlands (4.12); Finland (4.01); the United Kingdom (3.98) and Canada (3.93) follow in that order. At 3.60, South Africa has the most tested customs operations on the continent, followed by Kenya (3.17), Botswana (3.05), Uganda (2.97) and Rwanda (2.93).
However, Ali has embarked on administrative reform: he sacked and redeployed some officers, but so far, he has only scratched the surface. The NCS needs a holistic reform for the deep-seated rot to be cleared. The NCS has an image problem. Instead of killing innocent people in the course of combating smugglers, it should deploy intelligence to track smugglers who escape at the borders and jointly enforce arrests and sanctions with the police and the courts. Officers who maim and kill people should not be tolerated; they should be prosecuted. In the meantime, the NCS has to abandon the lethargic response to the excesses of the officers by thoroughly investigating every shooting incident and pay adequate compensation to the victims.
It cannot be ignored that Customs operatives do from time to time face threats to their lives. But the present shoot to kill approach to security must change. The NCS should develop best practices and reduce the need for the use of lethal force. In Britain, the police rarely use lethal force, but do have access to tasers to subdue suspects, which is a much safer alternative to guns. At the same time, authorisation to use lethal force is vested in senior officers.
To gain a measure of efficiency, the World Bank recommends friendly reform. This entails modern clearing systems that will entrench swift operations and detection of illicit cargoes, and training a crop of upright or scrupulous officers in charge of key operations at the entry ports. The borders, says the Bank, must have trade-related infrastructure to aid goods clearing to boost economic activities. On its part, the European Union’s Union Customs Code says an efficient customs agency must move away from red tape and encourage the shift to a paperless and fully electronic interoperable environment. The NCS should strategically see to the implementation of these initiatives. The reform should make the reduction of smuggling at the borders a priority.
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