The Oyo State House of Assembly has paid a courtesy visit to the Nigerian Customs Service headquarters in the state seeking supports towards tackling insecurity and further create a benefiting relationship.
Speaking on Tuesday in Ibadan Oyo/Osun Customs areas command headquarter, the Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Adebo Ogundoyin noted that the visit is to create synergy with Nigerian customs to achieve governmental goals in area of security and border protection.
According to Ogundoyin, there are 32 lawmakers from local government and constituencies across the Oyo state willing to work with Nigerian customs and other securities agencies to ensure residents are protected and their properties are safe.
He said, “the main thing we are here to do is to familiarize ourselves with the Nigerian customs, towards forming an inclusive government as promised by our administration during electioneering.
“We are aware that as law enforcement agency, in the process of carrying out your duties, you make lot of enemies. But still, the role of the customs and other agencies can not be overemphasis.
“We are the closest people to the grassroot and our role is to uphold the rule of law. We know our people and we can talk to the stakeholders towards achieving a peaceful and prosperous Oyo State.”
In his words while receiving the lawmakers, the customs area Comptroller, Oyo/Osun Area command, Comptroller Zilkifilu Abdullahi noted that aside generating revenue for the federal government, it is the duty of the agency to minimizing inflow of smuggling, prevent smugglers activities and illegal importation on arms into the country.
He appealed to the lawmakers to support the agency by enlightening the residents on the danger involve in illegal importations.
“We know we can only try our best, because there are places we cannot cover that is while we are pleading with the lawmakers to enlighten their people more.
“People importing arms illegally and you pretend not to see it, what if the arms are eventually used to murder your relative or someone close.
“People import expired rice, vegetable oil and other food items; they import used pants and bras, which can cause health disaster.
“Sometimes communities are hostile to us and we have to avoid some operations where we believe it may cause casualties. We believe with the State support our operations will be more efficient,” he added.
Speaking on neglected border communities, Abdullahi noted lot of communities in the state lack good roads and it needs government attention.
He said, “This is not limited to Oyo State, because the case of neglecting rural communities especially border towns is across the country.
“They lack most basic amenities including good road, pipe water and the government needs to do some thing about it.
“Our own challenge as Nigerian customs is mobility in Oyo state, we always assist other sister agencies in security operations but our patrol vehicles are aging.”
Abdullahi however warned against fraudsters who are using Nigerian customs identity to extort money from Nigerian in the name of custom auction.
“For now, items like rice and vegetable oil are not on auction, instead we are usually directed to donate them to Internal Displaced People’s, IDPs camp.
“Vehicles are only auctioned on the custom website and it has guidelines, so I appeal to Nigerian not to entertain fraudsters running auction programmes on behalf Nigerian customs,” he added.
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