Why smuggling through Maigatari ceased
investigation revealed that the business has now been taken over by small time smugglers who bring in the consignment in smaller bags.
The situation has been worsened by the recent directive by the Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, ordering customs officers to desist from raiding markets where smuggled bags of rice are sold
Our correspondents who visited Seme along the Mile 2-Badagry Expressway report that despite the ban on smuggling, it is indeed a thriving business in the area.
It was a cold morning on Friday at Seme. Navigating through the many bad portions of the expressway from Iba around LASU up to Agbara, Badagry and ultimately Seme, our reporter encountered many patrols mounted by the Nigeria Police, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS)
The Maigatari a town on the Nigeria/ Niger Republic border has been one of the routes for smuggling rice into Nigeria for decades with articulated vehicles filled with the banned commodity seen plying the road from the border town of Adare in Niger Republic into Maigatari on the Nigerian side.
The articulated vehicles usually move at night, crossing the borders between 1 and 2 am, passing unhindered into Nigeria.
Adare, which serves as the warehouse of Nigerian smugglers, is about one and half kilometer away from the Maigatari border post, and it was said that from the border post one could see the assembly of fully loaded trailers waiting for night to cross the border.
But in the last three months, Daily Trust gathered, smuggling activities around the border had completely ceased as there is no more movement of articulated vehicles.
This is rumoured to be as a result of a court case that crippled the empire of one of the smuggling kingpin.
The smuggler, was said to have defrauded one of his business partner, a Nigerien and that the case was taken to one of the courts in Niger Republic where an order was said to have been issued by the court that vehicles or goods belonging to this smuggler be impounded.
The smuggler, who is said to hail from Kano, had to sell most of his properties to be able to sort himself out from the trouble and that had grossly affected not only his business but also that of the rest of his Nigerian partners.
Mallam Mohammed Maigatari, a resident of Maigatari town, told Daily Trust that about three months back, Maigatri border was very busy, as about 15 to 20 trailers at interval moved rice from Niger Republic to Nigeria and such movement of large quantity of rice was always through the official border with allegations that border officials were bribed to let the products get through.
“Maigatari border is dry now. No more movement of vehicles, smuggling especially of foreign rice has stopped. I can’t say why the rice smuggling stopped all of sudden. However, some were saying the major dealer that supplies the rice got entangled in court case in Niger. The court case was said to have affected his business,” he said.
“My farm is just across the border in Niger Republic. When the smuggling was at its peak, from my farm you can count the number of trailers waiting for clearance for movement of their goods to Nigeria.
“In the past, individuals from the surrounding villages were into smuggling rice. Some smuggled using cars while others using motorcycles, but for the past one year the trend had reversed because the security agencies went tough on anyone found culpable by either seizing cars used to smuggle or motorcycle such means of moving the goods will be confiscated. Many lost their cars and motorcycles hence, the cessation of the illegal business.”
Also Saminu Haladu from Maigatari told Daily Trust on Sunday that Maigatari also attributed the cessation to the crackdown of border security on the activities of smugglers.
“Those using their cars and motorcycles to smuggle rice and Turkey Oil have stopped doing so for about a year now. They stopped since the security descended on them. They will arrest them, seize both the contraband and their means of transport. People abandoned it because the trouble involved in the business is more than the gain.”