Hyacinth Chinweuba
The Nigerian Navy Ship, NNS, Victory has impounded two thousand and eighty-nine 50kg bags of foreign parboiled rice smuggled into the country through the Calabar Waters.
According to Rear Admiral Vincent Okeke, the Commander NNS Victory who paraded six suspects over the weekend with the bags of rice at the naval base warehouse, said the street value of the rice is estimated at one hundred and thirty million naira.
Okeke stated that the smuggled items were brought in from Cameroon through Calabar Water Channel.
The Commander said ”NNS Victory patrol team arrested six men suspected to be rice smugglers at Utan Creek, off Tomshort Island with a large wooden boat laden with foreign parboiled rice smuggled from Cameroon”
He gave the names of the suspects to include for Cameroonians and one Nigerian: Tafili Redovili, Ayiseh Innocent, Makon Emmanuel Acillis, Billa Nwana, the Cameroonians and, Kayode Isaac, the Nigerian.
The Commander NNS Victory who paraded six suspects and the bags of rice at the naval base warehouse said the street value of the rice is estimated at one hundred and thirty million naira.
He said the rice was brought in from Cameroon through Calabar Water Channel.
He also disclosed that before the arrest of the six suspects, his team had confronted another large wooden boat at Okposo Creek in Akwa Obom State also laden with illegally imported foreign rice.
He said “We are handing over the impounded rice to the leader of Operation Border Drill of the Nigerian Customs in Calabar along with the suspects and two large wooden boats for further investigations and prosecution “.
“On sighting NNS Victory patrol team, the crew of the boat jumped into the sea and absconded, nonetheless, the boat was safely moved to our Base where one thousand, four hundred and eight bags of rice were offloaded and kept under our custody “.
He gave the total sum of items recovered by his team in the past nine months as worth three hundred and fifty-one million, eight hundred and seventeen thousand naira .
Okeke threatened that anyone who tries to defy the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok Ette Ibas directives that all illegal activities in the country’s territorial water must cease would be arrested and made to face the law.