The Ogun Command of the Nigeria Customs Service has seized 101 trailers of foreign parboiled rice in a period of 13 months.

Controller Dera Nnadi disclosed this at the command’s headquarters in Idiroko, Ipokia Local Government Area of Ogun State on Monday.

While speaking on the activities of the command between January 2021 and January 2022, Nnadi explained that 96 trailer loads of rice, being 57,758 bags of 50kg each were seized in 2021, while five trailer loads, being 3,008 bags of rice were intercepted in January 2022.

The NCS boss said that the command also stopped the illegal importation of ‘poultry products, used tyres, second-hand clothing, dangerous drugs (tramadol and cannabis sativa), palm oil, petroleum products, assorted soaps and cream.’

He maintained in total that 1,389 seizures were made within the period under review, adding that the duty paid value of all the items seized amounted to N1.48 billion.

Nnadi further noted that the major source of revenue of the Command, which is import and export, have not been optimized since the closure of the land borders by the Federal Government in 2019.

He added that NCS in Ogun was able to generate N43,921,205.50 through ‘fees collected from the auction sale of seized items, especially petroleum products, scrap metals and other perishable items.”

Nnadi acknowledged his men’s effort, he observed that ‘there is a remarkable increase in the number and quantities of seizures recorded in January 2022.’

He admitted to be “Aggressive stakeholder’s engagement; deployment of intelligence in all the operations; structural reorganization of the command; improved motivation of officers by the NCS management as exemplified by the operational vehicles allocated to the command,” amongst others.