Hyacinth Chinweuba
The Nigeria Customs Service, Western Marine command (WMC), has handed over cannabis worth N32, 750, 000 to the operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the command headquarters in Lagos.
In the first quarter of 2019, the command said it made seizures of various items like frozen poultry products, foreign parboiled rice and cannabis from different places within its area of coverage.
The Controller of the command, Comptroller Boyiliya Binga told journalists that the command had made a total of 2,035 bags of foreign parboiled rice with Duty Paid Value of about N44,973,500 in the first three months of the year.
He added that the command intexcepted 1,308 cartons of Frozen poultry product; cannabis and other items with total DPV of N90,967,000, within the period.
He however, quipped that no suspect was arrested in connection with the seizures saying the smugglers abandoned their items and jumped into the waters.
Comptroller Binga stated that the management teams are working hard to see that the sea going vessels are launched as soon as possible, even as he said that officers of the Service have been trained to man the vessels.
The Area Controller of of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Seme Command, Udotong Essien while receiving the seized cannabis from the Controller, commended the Service for the display of integrity.
Essen said maintained that the anti narcotic agency would carry out its own investigations to unravel the people behind the illegal business.
“It takes integrity for the Controller to transfer this amount of seizure. Don’t forget we are talking of over thirty million naira.
“I am very sure if he wanted to compromise, he would have taken such amount of money. There are some agencies that make such seizure and pretend not to know what to do,” he said.