Since the closure of Nigerian land borders on August 20, the Nigeria
Custom Service, NCS has come up with different kinds of directives and
orders. Acting on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria, the
Customs is the lead agency on matters of border and border patrols.
They also collect excise duties, import duties and such taxes that
affect businesses in many ways. In short, Customs is a revenue
generating agency of the Federal Government. Its role transcends what
is currently being done. Had it been they did their job up to 40
percent the idea of closing our border will not have come up.
Around the country Custom officials are seen as very wealthy people.
It is true because they show it. Their living conditions far outweigh
the input they make into the system. If you look very closely you will
equally have noticed that they live beyond their means as a result
government does not make the required quantum of receivable revenue.
They pay a token and squander the rest. Custom officers are highly
celebrated in social circles. They ooze money and damn the
consequences because a lot of posh guest houses and small hotels are
owned by them. The same way they own or co-own properties, car shops
and supermarkets.
Last week the Customs announced that petrol will no longer sell within
20 kilometers radius of any land border. They said specifically that
tankers will not be allowed to service filling stations near our
borders. The reason is that such filling stations apparently have
become conduits for moving such products across the borders. Surely
such assumption is a shame on customs itself, for if we forgive them
over smaller smuggled contrabands, how do we forgive tankers strolling
across the border to discharge petrol into Benin republic or Niger
Republic’s gerry cans and bottles? On the other hand, how do we excuse
Department of Petroleum Resources that issues these licenses from
finding a better way of monitoring, in conjunction with PPMC the
takers that leave depots and where they are headed?
The new rule is almost impracticable. Nigerians live near these
borders as places of aboard even before the borders emerged. How do
they socialize? How do they move from point A to B, how do they make
calls because telecom base stations are sited within this radius? How
do you service them? It is a tricky one because petrol is more like
life itself in this country as such anything that can abridge access
to it can cause a major social dysfunction. Customs can do better in
this circumstance instead of issuing almost impracticable statements.
We have said so before, we support the philosophy behind the closure
of the borders. It is impossible to continue to tolerate what Benin
and other West African countries have turned us to. They are like the
eel; they want to eat from the host till the parasite kills the host.
No we surely cannot continue that trajectory. Having invested heavily
in farming certain crops, it will be foolhardy to continue to allow
those same crops creep on us through our neighbours even when they
know we raised tariffs to encourage local production. We also cannot
continue to subsidize petrol, yet such petrol ends up with our
neighbours up to 10 million litres a day. This is tragic.
Worse is the reality that we are made to face because of insecurity.
Our neighbours yielded their land as landing space for illegal
firearms, ammunition and other platforms which armed robbers,
kidnappers and terrorists use to decimate our people. Yet we all
belong to ECOWAS. But ECOWAS pretend not to see nor hear. This is
equally ridiculous.
Beyond all these is the fact that Nigeria needs to wake up. The era of
playing big brother is over because we have a lot of hungry and
disoriented people to cater for. Whether some of our people have kith
and kin in neighbouring places should not arise, after all what good
have they done for us? Their job has been to humiliate Nigeria and
claim African brotherhood. It ought to stop. But in doing so we should
not treat our people like slaves in their own country by denying them
a basic life’s need. Customs is wielding powers from both ends and
sides of the knife, it is dangerous. While we hope that Customs will
review the directive, government must find another technology driven
way to monitor our takers going forward. That job rests squarely
within the petroleum sector.
