The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Thursday inaugurated two \nseagoing specialized security gunboats acquired in 2015 by the immediate\n past Comptroller-General, Abdullahi Inde Dikko, to boost Nigeria\u2019s \nanti-smuggling capacity on waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The boats were acquired towards the end of Dikko\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The present Col. Hameed Ali (retd) led leadership, on assumption of \noffice in 2015 abandoned the patrol boats, which procurement was \napproved on May 9, 2012 by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) of the \nformer President Goodluck Jonathan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Business and Maritime West Africa learnt that the patrol boats, which\n wasted away for years at the Marina Jetty in Lagos were acquired at \nover N3billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was also gathered that the failure of the service to utilize these\n boats led to increase in the activities of smugglers along the \nwaterways. According to sources, there have been increased smuggling and\n other criminal activities within the nation\u2019s inland waters and creeks,\n as the Marine Commands of the service has been rendered ineffective due\n to the absence of patrol boats and other operational platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was also reported that the service spends whopping amount of money annually in maintaining the two patrol boats, the \u2018Customs\u2019 Pride\u2019 and \u2018Group of Nine\u2019, as it needs to run the engines as well as the generating sets and other communication equipment on board the boats which were anchored at the Marina waterfront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The service had following the acquisition of the two boats told stakeholders in 2015 that they will be commissioned and deployed to patrol the nation\u2019s inland waters, a promise that was not fulfilled more than four years after, as the boats were tied at the jetty rotting away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ali, on taking over the leadership of the Service in 2015, slated the\n commissioning and subsequent deployment of the patrol boats to 2016, \nwhich was also never done, thus allowing the smugglers to operate on the\n waterways freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delivering the keynote address in yesterday\u2019s inauguration, Ali \ndisclosed that Nigeria\u2019s quest for non-oil revenue was dependent on the \nNCS to fight smuggling and bring it to the barest minimum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to him, experience has shown that whenever smugglers face \nstiff enforcement by Customs anti-smuggling operatives on the land, they\n turn to the waterways to carry out their illegal trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said, \u201cUnfortunately, before now the service has been weak on the \nwater arising from the lack of seagoing vessels to effectively checkmate\n smugglers on the high sea\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He explained that the inauguration of the two seagoing vessels, well \nequipped with necessary firepower and other requirements for long-time \nwater patrol, was in line with the ongoing repositioning of the service \nto effectively deliver on its mandate to the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said, \u201cWith these vessels, I hope smugglers will no longer take advantage of NCS vulnerability on water to smuggle in contraband. NCS Marine operatives can now sail to intercept them right on the high sea\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source: Business and Maritime West Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Thursday inaugurated two seagoing specialized security gunboats acquired in 2015 by the immediate past Comptroller-General, Abdullahi Inde Dikko, to boost Nigeria’s anti-smuggling capacity on waters. The boats were acquired towards the end of Dikko’s administration. The present Col. Hameed Ali (retd) led leadership, on assumption of office in 2015 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,127],"tags":[99,394,395],"class_list":["post-1634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-maritime","tag-customs","tag-gunboats","tag-inde-dikko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1634"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1637,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions\/1637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shippingworld-ng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}