The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Ogun State Command is putting measures in place to step up security at the border points in order to curtail illegal trades and prevent offensive goods from coming into the country.

The Customs Area Controller (CAC) of the zone, DC Oteri Richard, disclosed this, adding that, besides scanning imported goods coming into Nigeria, the Command also carries out 100 per cent physical examination to prevent offensive goods from being smuggled into the country through the border points.

He added, “Due to the security situation in the country, we are working tirelessly to ensure that Ogun Command is not an easy route for smugglers.

The effort is yielding positive results because recently we intercepted a truck load of furniture items with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of over N18million and over 3,500 cartoons of frozen items with DPV of N16.8million, loaded in a 30-footer truck.

While the frozen products were immediately destroyed at the command’s head office in Abeokuta , the furniture items were taken to government’s warehouse for further investigation. We also realised over N76.6million, being amount paid as import duty for 731 vehicles in June, 2011 and over N1.2billion revenue generation between January and May”.

The CAC explained that furniture is under prohibition and smuggling it into the country would affect local manufacturers operating in the country through unhealthy competition.

Oteri, who conducted newsmen round the seizures mainly furniture of various seizes, explained that the truck came into the zone through Ajegunle area.

“ The smugglers quickly detached the head of the truck and mobilised the youths in the community against us to prevent us from carrying out our duty. They tried to prevent the arrest but we dislodged them with the intervention of other security personnel in the state”, he said.