The National President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Prince Olayiwola Shittu recently took a hard look on the menace of smuggling, and concluded that, not only has the menace rob the nation of vital values, it has also robbed the citizens of every notion of shame
EXCERPT PLEASE:-!
How do you see smuggling?
Smuggling should not ever be allowed. It kills investment. Discourages entrepreneurship, kills the manufacturing sector, in fact, it virtually breaks down the economy because, it is cancerous. Why it is a cancer, is because you are actually introducing foreign bodies into the economic blood of a nation.
If our nation had been allowed to grow like a natural process, we should be proud to wear the Nigerian clothes, buy and wear our ‘salubata’, and dress in all-made-in Nigeria. And there will be no reasons that would say we should not be proud.
But when they started smuggling in foreign products, unfortunately, our leaders started it. If you look at the pictures of Ahmadu Bello, Azikiwe and Awolowo; it was ‘danshiki’, ‘agbada’ etc.; those were their uniforms. And things were going on well.
But when we started having tastes for foreign things, the tastes altered our needs, and we started looking for costly and undesired alternative routes to meet it and which finally culminated into smuggling!
There is no country that can willingly allow smuggling. We are not talking of smuggling of drugs, which in itself amounts to mere importation of death. We are talking of daily needs. Let me give you examples: in this country today, we should be able to produce our toilet rolls, our hand towels, pampers etc; those things that are basic necessity of life! But can we today truthfully produce tooth-picks? Even with all our towering posture and all our forests, trees and sticks?
Do you know that today, our people are now importing brooms? Do you want to tell me you have not seem the imported Malaysian brooms? Did you see some of the brooms some graced the political fields during the past campaigns? They were well-knitted and artistically designed.
What is the ECOWAS doing over such things, from a collective standpoint?
Presently, part of the ECOWAS concern now, is to tackle the issue of ECOWAS intra-border smuggling menace. And this is because we are going under the same Common External Tariff. We are going to be like EU, where what affects country A also affects country B and country C. it is all a case of common Market, common crossings, common currency; and that is where ultimately it would lead us.
And that is why the issue of immigration is affecting every one of them, because they see things in terms of common wealth; and that is why they tackle the issue of smugglers together.
If somebody is crossing from Benin Republic into Nigeria, and the Benin Republic knows that developments in Nigeria would affect their own economy, they would naturally discourage that thing coming into Nigeria. But before, they may have actually lived their lives on the basis of that thing coming into Nigeria; perhaps because they gain from it benefits which included employments, money, etc.; and thus as a haven for smugglers who developed their own economy. And when you are chasing smugglers from Nigeria and it enters into their country, you simply have to go back; since you can freely go into another country.
But now, with CET in position, a Customs patrol van can pursue a smugglers from Lagos to Mauritania; because its common territory. That is the integration that would be the eventuality of all this gradual movement.
You were talking about smuggling…
Yes, I am talking about smuggling. Smuggling is recorded, not only from in-bound cargo smuggling. You know there is also out-bound smuggling. Nigeria has banned the export of trees and woods, so that we can conserve the ones we have; because in another 100 years, there may not any sunshades in Nigeria as a result of lacking trees, if we go at this rate in cutting down our trees; while they are conserving their own. So, that one too is smuggling.
Don’t forget, Nigeria currently has no renewal plans for our deforestation activities; we are not planting trees! All we do is to plant flowers to beautify our compounds. But if you check our villages, when our father built their houses, each would also put at least, one big bao-bao tree somewhere around the compound. So, when all of the trees now grow, they sit under it; not because they love to simply sit; but also because they want something that would equally be providing them oxygen, while eliminating their carbon dioxide. They were wiser than us. They knew more of the importance of protecting their environment, ahead of their time.
So, you can now understand when I tell you I prefer to go to the village, from time to time. It is because, even if you don’t have the best of modern day luxuries, you at least, breathe fresh air.
So, what you think we are losing through smuggling?
Values! We have lost values! Nothing makes us ashamed again in Nigeria. The more money you are able to steal, the better the rewards. What is more; when our leaders have even introduced a slap on the wrist? If somebody steals N24 billion, all you do is simply bargain: please return N20bn; and everybody would hail you! That is bargaining!
The judge can then say: you are very guilty; go and pay N25, 000; because out of that N4bn, you must also have made some returns to him! He may even say; ‘O ya, go to jail for six months!’. They will now calculate and say you had been arrested some nine months ago; and thereafter, task you to walk home; while you task yourself on how to spend your money! It is well!