Two months ago, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi, appointed Victor Dimka, a Deputy Comptroller, the Acting Customs Area Controller (CAC) of the Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone “A” to the surprise of most industry watchers.

Victor Dimka, Acting Customs Area Controller (CAC) of the Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone “A

The decision of the Customs helmsman seems to be paying off as the Acting CAC has made a stunting 557 seizures in less than two months. In this interview with Godfrey Bivbere and Moses Nosike, Dimka spoke on a number of issues ranging from the main task of fighting smuggling, problems encountered in the process and many more.

Excerpt:

In the last couple of weeks, there have been announcements  of  various seizures. Do you think the seizures are enough to stop smuggled goods from coming into the country?

Smuggling can only be controlled.It cannot be  totally   eradicated .When the pursuit is sustained vigorously,  you will agree with me without being told that it won’t be business as usual. Were you used  to competing on  the roads with smugglers in Seme or Idi-Iroko and other places?

The smugglers  tell you they go to the creeks because the roads are becoming difficult to ply and with a total of 557 seizures in two months, coupled with two convictions, I think we have  sent enough  signal and that has brought down  smuggling to a considerable level.

You talked about smugglers going to the creeks, what measures have you put in place to check them and what are the new tactics because you know  smugglers daily develop new ways of moving contraband goods into the country? What measures have you put in pace to curb their activities?

Most times, I don’t talk about the strategies because you will be exposing your strategies to the smugglers. Smugglers are Nigerians, smugglers are our brothers; people reading papers, listening to these  strategies on radio and television sets are also smugglers but what I want to say is that we have improved our network of information.

We now have enough patrol vehicles and tested and willing  officers to checkmate their excesses  on the creeks.

We wait for them to suffer to bring these cargoes from the creeks because we  are not of the marine but as soon as they load these cargoes into their vehicles,  we  pick them up on tip-off and for  those of them that are unlucky, we use boats. That is why we are able to make seizures of 4,000 bags of rice recently and also five boats of  various textile materials and traveling bags.

Along the mile 2 – Seme route, there are lots of  patrol vehicles , they normally park along the road  monitoring trucks coming in and out of the area, but the complaint is that they overdo it. People allege that containers that do not   even  have contraband  are  stopped.

That can never be true because we have been receiving commendations from importers, agents, and members of the public for doing the job the way it should be done. FOU is saddled with the responsibility of preventing smuggling and we do that only based on information, particularly the containers you mentioned.

We don’t stop  containers on the highways to check, we only pick containers that we have information about from our informants, that such containers are carrying un-Customs goods and we  don’t open them on the highway, we bring them right here to the FOU to confirm if that information is correct, is genuine or not.

So we don’t overdo some of these things as people will put it. There’s   a lot of  blackmail   in   out type of job  because you are seizing the means of livelihood of these smugglers. So, they would stop at nothing to blackmail you but I have said it, time and time again and I will say it now that no amount of blackmail will deter us from doing what is expected of us.

We have been  given logistics, we have been encouraged through  the welfare package and capacity building. That we have seen of late and so, to whom much has been given, much is expected. We are performing because we have been given much.

So, complaints are expected. When you are doing the right thing, there would be complaints but I am very sure that many Nigerians  are  pleased with what Customs is doing now.

That brings us to the revenue drive of the service. Do you have any target like other regular commands?
Unfortunately, we don’t have any target because we are not a revenue generating area. We complement what others do in the Ports  and border areas but when we discover that a duty paid on  import  is  low and we confirm it from the ASYCUDA unit here, we send it back to the port of release to amend it upwards  and such duty does not come to this Command, it goes to the Command of  release but all they have  to do is to send back to us that the duty has been adjusted and paid for.

Now, let us look at the challenges that you are facing as a command?

The challenges are not different from what we faced in the past. You increasingly  discover  that  most of  the villages  at  the border do not see anything wrong with smuggling. You maybe pursuing a smuggler into such villages but  there are always  spontaneous reactions. The villagers will want to block you from going in to carry such contraband  and at times, such resistance are met with use  of force which  have  unpleasant consequences for the Customs officers, the smugglers and members of such communities.

Secondly, there is a way all the buildings are; half will be in Nigerian territory and the other ones will be in Benin Republic. So at times , you will be on patrol and you see an obvious case where  arrests  should be made and you go in there but  you will told you are in Benin Republic, so you can not go in.

They sit there, look at you, check your movements and with the use of GSM phone,  they can reach their informants. Just as we have informants, they have theirs too. So they continue to monitor the patrol officer. When they are lucky,  the patrol officers  enter  and when they are not , nothing can be  done.

But we will continue to wreck havoc  on these people (smugglers) on daily basis. That is why  you see that our  activities have  translated  to the number of seizures we have made, 557 seizures in two months.