Customs will deploy drones at Seme border due to smuggling
Customs will deploy drones at Seme border due to smuggling
The Nigeria Customs will deploy drones at Seme due to smuggling. The willingness to embark on this mission was to ease and improve patrol at the border.
The command coordinator for NCS Zone A, Modupe Aremu, during a working visit on Monday, told journalists to present the need for drones.
In her statement, border management surveillance will be done electronically through the use of drones to ensure that there will be an area overview of what is happening.
“Seme command visit is the end of my tour in Zone A and acknowledged all commands, accounting for over 80% revenue collection by the NCS and also continue the good work.
“With the tour of all commands, all officers are doing well but they can do better”.
And they should be expecting impromptu visits from the Zonal Coordinator, so they should not relax on the job.
“Also, customs N300 billion contract, end-to-end automation is about to kick-off.
It concerns Information and Communication Technology connectivity; when it comes on board, we are going to have an electronic signature, drones patrolling the border,” she said.
She said the service was trying to reduce person-to-person contact to minimize human involvement, making work faster and more efficient.
Aremu expressed satisfaction with the joint border post buildings, commissioned on Oct. 23, 2018, noting that it ushered in an era of coordinated border management
“This is one-stop-shop and from what the comptroller has shown me, it is what has practiced abroad; this is really commendable that what we see when we travel, we have it here in Nigeria,” she said.
She urged Seme Customs to keep abreast of all the ECOWAS protocols in order to understand what was happening.
On enforcement activities, she urged the command to keep pushing as the nation at this point in time needed the service to properly secure its borders.
She expressed the hope that the scanner at the border would start functioning to help simplify processes as much as possible.
The command was charged to do a proper compilation of case files and prosecution of arrested suspects.
ACG Aremu said this to show the seriousness of the service in fighting smuggling.
Earlier, Seme Customs Comptroller, Bello Mohammed Jibo, noted that enforcement activities were not affected by the border closure.
Due to a remarkable interception of 1,244 suspected smuggled goods with a duty paid value of over N856 million made by the command.
In spite of unfavorable economic policies placed on commodities transiting through the Benin Republic, he said, the command was able to earn N719 million as revenue and process 635,149.23 metric tons’ export volume with a free on board value of N15.5 billion.
Having a good understanding of the host community, the command says to cement this relationship, a modern toilet facility has been built and handed over to the Badagry West Development Area and partnered with an NGO to equip the Badagry United Football Club.
“Some projects undergoing work or completed in the command are 16 classrooms for primary school, construction of 30-man rank and file quarters, and others.
“ICT interconnectivity at the Joint Border Patrol was as a result of challenges faced”.
This includes the signing of a bilateral agreement, the connection of the barracks to the national grid, and inadequate junior staff,” he said.
