By Eguono Odjegba

THE Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, Federal Operations Unit, FOU, Zone ‘A’ Lagos has introduced a Special Weapons and Tactical Team, SWATT, to deepen its operational activities, raise its revenue performance while blocking revenue leakages.

SWATT, since inception few months ago, has busted a number of high profile concealments and recorded seizures that has not only saved the country the security implication of such items finding their way into the country but also translated into very impressive revenue recovery, put in the region of over N200million.

A source close to the office of the Unit Controller, Yibiri Yahaya, told Vanguard Maritime Report, “We are generating revenue and blocking leakages. It is secondary issue at what point revenue leakage is identified, the primary objective is that a leakage was identified and that is what is important.

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“Today the country is overwhelmed with insecurity which the Federal Government is battling to put down. Customs is saddled with this duty in the area of blocking importations of illegal weapons and ammunition.

“It is a whole big picture, and if people are always finding ways to go around the law, to beat security networks that are in place, no responsible government will sit back and accept its system to be overrun. That is why the unit controller also came up with this strategy, and SWATT is on top of its game and have been producing results.”

Vanguard Maritime Report findings indicate that some of the seizures made so far include refrigerators, military attires, regulated communication equipments without end-user-certificates, tomato pastes, among others. Also some of these were concealed in Customs’ goods, which may have embarrassed some Customs top officials.

It will be recalled that upon his deployment to the flagship FOU late last year, Yahaya pledged to continue to build on strategies he met on ground to improve the unit’s operation.