Endure Short-term Pains for Long-term Gains, Customs Boss Urges Nigerians

The Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd.), has urged Nigerians to endure short-term pains to enjoy long-term gains from the partial closure of the nation’s land borders.

This is as the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) announced the seizure of 99 containers valued at N2.03 billion from its two area commands in Port Harcourt.

Addressing journalists after an inspection of the seized items at the Customs Area II Command, Onne, Rivers State, Ali noted that many Nigerians were complaining of hardship arising from the border closure.

He said many people had stated that the time was not ripe for the closure of the borders as government was yet to provide the necessary infrastructure to encourage local production of needed goods.

His words: “There will never be a good time. The decision of closing the border is ripe, we don’t need to have 100 per cent electricity, good roads before we take the step. Most importantly is that we must be able to bear the initial pains in order to stabilise and have long term successes.

“We don’t have to eat rice every day. There are other alternative food. I assure you that the price will stabilise and the ordinary farmers will have value for their farming business.”

The Customs boss also advised Nigerians to be wary of eating imported rice as most them currently in the market were expired and re-bagged, after polishing with chemicals.

“All those things they are bringing into our country are aimed at bringing us to our knees. We must reach out to Nigerians for them to know the deadly effect of what they are consuming.

“We are consuming expired foreign rice. When it causes cancer, we begin to find who to blame. What they (importers) do is that they polish and rebag the rice after polishing it with chemicals for unsuspecting consumers to eat.”

Ali also said there was need to dredge the nation’s ports to allow big ships access and to boost maritime revenue.

“The problem with some of our ports is that we don’t have a deep sea port. Most of the big ships when they come they discharge on the high sea because our ports are not deep and we have to use barges to go and evacuate them.

“It is a big challenge that none of the five ports is deep. This is an issue government needs to tackle. So the government needs to tackle to make the ports accessible for big ships and make the ports viable.

“Dredging the Calabar, Warri, Cross River, and Lagos ports is an investment which government need to make to boost the maritime revenue.”

On people arrested for importing fake, sub-standard on expired goods, Ali said they would be prosecuted after full investigations to serve as deterrent to others.