LAST week, the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Mr. Adewale Adeniyi, revealed that drug barons were increasingly recruiting Customs officers and officials of bonded terminals into their drug trafficking operations to evade security checks. Speaking at an event showcasing a major drug seizure at the Tin-Can Port, Lagos State, Adeniyi promised that those involved would face severe consequences. According to him, the agency had made significant progress in identifying such corrupt persons within and outside the service who facilitated the movement of drug consignments without proper examination. Adeniyi, who displayed approximately N4.2bn worth of seized marijuana on the occasion, noted that the NCS was intensifying its scrutiny of the activities of unscrupulous officers to eliminate them from the system, adding that some indicted officers were found to be collaborating with bonded terminal operators to expedite the clearance of drug shipments. His words: “I assure you that the service will soon name, shame and arrest those involved. The modus operandi of the syndicate involves moving imported containers from the port on transit without proper examination, diverting them to private premises instead of bonded warehouses.” The Customs CG acknowledged the collaborative efforts of agencies like the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in combating drug trafficking.

If the declaration by the Customs boss is anything to go by, then Nigeria still has a long way to go in taming drug trafficking. In recent times, the NDLEA, the agency saddled with drug policy and control in the country, has given Nigerians ample cause for cheer. Week in, week out, it continues to bust drug trafficking cartels, taking the battle to the men and women who have chosen to trade in harmful and banned substances. It is one agency that may be said to be mindful of its mandate, but then even the most dutiful of agencies cannot afford to let down its guard, and that is where the revelation by the Customs CG, who has no history of flippancy in his public pronouncements, is particularly disturbing. If officers and men in uniform paid to guard the country’s borders are colluding with criminals to, as it were, wreck Nigeria’s moral fabric, destroy the lives of the youth through drug addiction, and give Nigeria a terrible image as a haven of hard drugs, then the country has a tough battle on its hands. For one thing, the civil populace expected to be protected from the harmful activities of drug traffickers is left vulnerable and defenceless as the compromised personnel callously undermine public sanity and safety.

If Customs personnel are recruiting Customs officers and officials of bonded terminals into their drug trafficking operations, they are doing so because there are criminal structures within the agency. Nothing but a culture of mindless and pervasive corruption nurtured over the years can explain that terrible scenario. Clearly, the bad eggs within the force, who probably cut across the various ranks and must have been operating as a mafia within the agency, must be weeded out. To incapacitate them, the proper thing is to ensure that the institutional loopholes permitting their corruptive acts and tendencies are plugged. It is a shame that such loopholes exist in the first place, but it will be even more shameful to retain them even when the incalculable damage they have done to the country is in ample evidence, and officialdom has promised the public a respite. Crime has a culture by which it thrives and no reasonable progress can be made when that culture has not been dismantled.

But speaking of criminals is one thing and taking concrete action against them quite another.  Surely, the Customs CG surely does not expect the public to weed out the criminals within the NCS; that is the job of the force and how it goes about it will go a long way in determining public perception and relations with the agency going forward. Since the Customs boss did not name a single officer that had been apprehended for the alleged criminal collusion, sceptics can be forgiven if they think that he is merely hoodwinking Nigerians with yet another moonlight tale. Nigerians are used to government officials flying kites about combating corruption and clearing those involved from service with nothing concrete coming after their rhetoric.  In this regard, we reiterate that it is the duty of the Customs CG to expose and identify corrupt officers under him for necessary punishment, not telling Nigerians that the so-called corrupt officers will soon be exposed. Just when will this “soon” be? And why not wait to identify the corrupt officers and start disciplinary measures against them before telling  Nigerians about their nefarious acts?

We believe that Nigerians would appreciate the Customs CG getting to work, ensuring actual identification of the suspected saboteurs, and subjecting them to punishment, rather than merely promising their exposure. Such talk does not amount to anything concrete. Over to the Customs CG and his team.