Kano-Jigawa Customs Generates Over N16bn, Clampsdown on Illicit Drugs, Other Contraband

Kano-Jigawa Customs Generates Over N16bn, Clampsdown on Illicit Drugs, Other Contraband

The Kano – Jigawa Area Command of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has generated the sum of N16, 909, 520, 467.32 as revenue between January to August 2021.

This is as the Command stated that it has confiscated N200 million worth of illicit drugs, unregistered and expired drugs including a new brand of sex enhancer known as AK-47.

The Customs Area Comptroller, Suleiman Pai-Umar, disclosed this at a news conference on Thursday in Kano while handing over the confiscated illicit drugs to the Kano State Coordinator, National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Shaba Mohammad at the commands office in Kano.

He said that the drugs were seized by the command from smugglers from July to date.

“The patronage and consumption of unregistered, hard and expired drugs are of great concern due to their consequences on our teeming youths.

“Most criminal acts are carried out under the influence of these hard drugs; we will continue to stop it at all cost,” the Comptroller said.

According to him, the continuous efforts of officers of the command had yielded various categories of seizure in the last three months, which include 707 bags of 50kg of foreign rice with duty paid value of N20,503,000 and 155 bales of second hand clothes with duty paid value of N11,625,000.

Comptroller Umar added that 16 jerry cans of vegetable oil with value paid duty of N334,000, 130 spaghetti with duty paid value of N1,950,000 and 231 cartons of macaroni with duty paid value of N104,000 were confiscated.

Other confiscated goods,he said,include 30 packs of Mosquito coil with duty paid value of N660,000 and 29 cartons of couscous with duty paid value of N337,0000.

The Command stated that the total duty paid value of the seizures amounted to N41,398,0000.00.

Vowing that the NCS would continue to carry out its enforcement duties with utmost professionalism and caution, based on actionable intelligence information, Comptroller Umar urged the public to continue to cooperate with the service, so as to insulate the economy from smugglers and protect people’s health.

While taking receipt of the confiscated drugs, the Kano State Coordinator, National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Shaba Mohammad appreciated the Kano-Jigawa Command of the NCS for its unrelenting effort in climbing down on uncustom items especially illicit drugs.

“This is a product of inter-agency collaboration which has gone to a higher level with the current Comptroller,” he noted.

Mr. Muhammad disclosed that among the seized drugs is quinine which the World Health Organization (WHO) recently sent a red alert on.

“Since the red alert, I paid over three hundred thousand just to get information on the product but couldn’t get much but to my surprise this Command has already seized a lot of it,” he disclosed.

While calling on those in the drug business to desist from importing unregistered products, he called on the general public to refrain from buying drugs in unregistered pharmacies.

By PRNigeria