The Nigerian Customs Services has seized arms and ammunition imported into the country from Europe and the United States, on 17 different occasions at the various points of entry in the last 4 years.
This disclosure was contained in a report prepared by the Enforcement, Investigation and Inspection Department detailing its general anti-smuggling performance from 2012 to 2016.
It said the seizures were carried out during the period under review as part of its anti-smuggling activities. It stated that the anti-smuggling activities covered all the airports, seaports, creeks and border stations nationwide.
The report stated that while the service recorded just one case of seizure of arms and ammunition in 2012, the figure rose by 700 per cent to eight cases in 2013.
In 2014, according to the report, six cases of confiscation of imported arms and ammunition were recorded by the NCS while none was recorded in 2015.
Commenting on the development, the Public Relations Officer,NCS, Mr. Wale Adeniyi, in a telephone interview on Saturday with The Punch said that the influx of arms and ammunition into the country was worrisome.
He explained that despite the fact that the NCS had limited of scanners, the agency had been performing its statutory anti smuggling duties subject to the constraint.
Adeniyi who did not provide the amount of arms and ammunition seized, added that just last week, the service recorded the seizure of arms in Tin Can Island Port.
Before that, he explained that another case was the one involving large cache of armunition concealed in foodstuffs in a border in Oyo state.
He said “It’s a worrisome development for all well meaning Nigerians because of the direct nexus between arms smuggling and various criminal acts like insurgency, militancy, communal crisis, kidnapping and others.
