The Customs Area Controller, Port and Terminal Multi-services Ltd. (PTML) Command, Tenny Daniyan, handed over the cartridges to NCCSALW in Lagos on Tuesday.
He stated that customs was saddled with the mandate of revenue generation, trade facilitation, suppression of smuggling and safeguarding of the nation’s borders.
He said that continuous interception of illegal arms was the service frontline role of maintaining national security, adding that their efforts aimed toward mopping illegal arms from the country and strengthening public safety.
“The command while conducting examination on one used Toyota Tundra and one used Hyundai Sonata extracted 75 rounds of 12GA live cartridges and one empty 9MM magazine along with four rounds of live ammunition, respectively,” Mr Daniyan said.
He said that the command would continue to promote legitimate trade while ensuring that national security was not compromised.
The PTML customs boss attributed the seizures to the extraordinary vigilance of the officers in the command which was discovered because of 100 per cent examination.
He said, “Before we discovered the cartridges, our officers had to turn the vehicles around, some cartridges were recovered in the tank meter of the vehicles and some recovered inside the seat form. We discovered the cartridges inside vehicles that were imported to the command over six months ago. We have been investigating the source of the shipment which shows that the vehicles were bought online from overseas. The owners were discovered during examination. Some of the countries where the vehicle came from are using weapons legally. We discovered that the importation of the vehicles was not to bring arms and ammunition because of the quantity but ammunition is not allowed into the country.”
He reiterated the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adeniyi, core mandate of zero tolerance to smuggling including arms and ammunitions.
Mr Daniyan said that the command had been investigating the interception for over six months and that they just got a directive from customs management to hand it over to NCCSALW.
He urged stakeholders to examine their consignment properly before getting to port of destinations
Mr Daniyan, while handing over the cartridges and ammunition to NCCSALW, said he witnessed a second handing over of illicit weapons.
According to him, the Comptroller General recently handed over some containers of ammunition to NCCSALW in Lagos.
He promised to redouble their efforts in ensuring they stopped illicit arms coming into the country.
The Zonal Coordinator, South-West of NCCSALW, Superintendent of Police (SP), Mustapha Alamutu (retd), commended the customs for handing over the illicit arms to NCCSALW, saying that one of illicit arm was enough to course damage to the country.
He said that NCCSALW was saddled with the responsibility of retrieving illicit arms from security agencies across the country.
Mr Alamutu said that the handing over was symbolic for breaking through and subsequent handing over of the illicit arms.
“The National Centre for the control of small arms and light weapons is saddled with the collection, storage, destruction, management and stockpiling of obsolete, seized, and illegally held small and light weapons. NCCSALW is the only agency saddled with the responsibility to retrieve all recovered Illicit arms from all security agencies across the country. Nigeria should be conscious of illicit arms. The handing over is a collective effort of the two agencies, and we pray the synergy continues,” Mr Alamutu said.
(NAN)