Bloodshed by Nigeria Customs Service officers is worsening around the country. In another invasion of the civilian population, Customs officers have just sacked Fagbohun village in the Yewa South Local Government Area of Ogun State. There, operatives reportedly maimed, killed, and burned houses and other valuables. The remaining residents have fled, according to the traumatised village head. Unfortunately, such violent lawlessness by the security agencies is gaining ground in the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
On the watch of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Hameed Ali, the NCS has become a rabid, blood-letting state agency. In wars and internal security challenges, there are always rules of engagement binding on security agencies. Do the Customs rules of engagement in border security include invasion of villages and towns on account of apprehending criminal smugglers? Or does the law establishing the NCS empower it to engage in revenge missions? It is, indeed, terrifying when security operatives throw caution to the wind and use arms and ammunition on the citizens they are paid to respect and protect. This is a valid definition of authoritarianism.
The Fagbohun incident substantiates the growing predilection of the NCS to take the law into its own hands. This is perilous for Nigeria’s unstable democracy. In an ostensible reprisal, Customs operatives stormed Fagbohun to avenge the earlier killing of two officers in the area. It is condemnable that the smugglers who murdered security operatives on lawful duty have overstepped their boundaries. The agency has denied the attacks, saying it only arrested those who attacked its officers.
But in a heart-rending agony, the Baale (village head) of Fagbohun, Simeon Fagbohun, painted a gory picture of the Customs reprisal attack on the community in the last week of October. In the invasion, officers shot at people, looted property, torched motorcycles, and houses. “We saw that they (Customs) burnt the house of Adeoye Fagbohun, one of the sons of the Fagbohun family; he is my elder brother,” the chief said. “They burnt his house with his three motorcycles. His vulcanising machine was also burnt inside the house.” Residents were declared missing; all this was in the name of enforcing the anti-smuggling law.
Really, Nigeria’s recessed economy is bleeding terribly to smuggling. As of 2019, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had estimated that the economy was losing N2 billion daily to petrol smuggling across the porous borders. The Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association says annually, the government loses $312 million to customs duty and value-added tax evasion by textile smugglers. In the six years to 2018, Nigeria lost $3 billion ($500m annually) in royalties and taxes to gold smuggling, says the President. Assorted weapons, vehicles, and foods, particularly rice and frozen poultry, are smuggled heavily, with dire consequences for the local industry, security, and jobs.
In all this, Ali’s Customs misses the point by its resort to violence against the people to tackle the albatross. The punishment for smuggling is certainly not for Customs officers to wage war against defenceless communities and kill people extrajudicially. Ali and the NCS have blood on their hands. In 2021 alone, the NCS has repeatedly shed blood with impunity in Iseyin, Oyo State (in May and July), Katsina State and other border communities in Ogun State on the flimsy pretext of enforcing anti-smuggling laws.
On Ali’s watch, this has succeeded in driving Nigerians and the Customs further apart. Law enforcement should be done within the confines of the law. Obviously, the Buhari regime does not buy into this dictum, if not, it would have taken proactive action against the NCS’s bloodstained operations by now.
At present, the Customs is a lawless agency, no matter the income it makes; certainly, no income in government coffers can equate to a single innocent life wasted by Customs bullets. Ali should retrace his steps and review NCS operations in line with civil procedures. Thus, a note to Ali: when a crime is committed in a democracy, it is the remit of the police to enforce the law, not for Customs to embark on reprisal attacks simply because officers have guns. This is a dangerous anomaly. The NCS should subordinate itself to civil procedures.
A lesson from the United Kingdom will suffice for Ali and his lawless officers. In May 2013, two Islamic terrorists of Nigerian origin – Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo – ran over a soldier, Lee Rigby, with a car before stabbing him to death in front of the Royal Artillery Barracks, London. No soldier went on the rampage to “revenge” Rigby’s death, only the police stepped in to prosecute the offenders. Adebowale got a 45-year jail term; Adebolajo received a life sentence, all within a year of the crime. This is the way a democratic society operates – on the rule of law. Customs officers do not need to take the law into their own hands because their CG is a retired military officer, who seems not answerable to the outcries from lawmakers at the National Assembly. Therefore, Customs should allow the police to take charge when a crime is committed henceforth.
The extreme rate of smuggling is a gross indictment of the NCS, more especially as Nigeria unilaterally shut its land borders for 18 months to December 2020. It shows the weakness of the service, whose main remit is to facilitate and enhance trade.
Killing cannot justify smuggling. In the face of the Customs atrocities, Buhari should stop his aloofness. He should overhaul the NCS. There are far better ways to curb smuggling, which the NCS should imbibe. Anti-smuggling enforcement is more effective at the borders; it is pointless for Customs to storm markets and highways to wage war on smugglers who had earlier escaped at the borders.
The NCS has the mandate to deter illicit and illegal trade. But instead of the present crude and sadistic approach, the Buhari regime needs to develop effective strategies, including the right mix of policy, regulation, and law enforcement, to the border and maritime security management. Variations in tax and price structures on high-demand commodities provide large economic incentives for transnational smuggling. These differences should be addressed. In modern law enforcement, the government should provide the tools for the Customs and Immigration service to patrol the borders with drones, high-end technology, scanners, trackers and fitted helicopters to detect smuggling activities. The interdiction of and halting of the flows of illicit commodities, services, and the apprehension and prosecution of individuals facilitating illicit trade should be carried out professionally and effectively. This parallel mandate can lead to operational inefficiencies.
The NASS, which is probing the deaths linked to the Customs in Iseyin and Jibia (Katsina), is too weak. Ali, an appointee, is taking elected lawmakers for granted. This should not be. He should be made to stop these invasions, account for the killings and the NCS operate within the extant laws. Governors of states where these killings occur, and the affected communities should institute court actions against the NCS.
