Smugglers Kill Customs Officer, Destroy Imported Goods At Seme Border

There was pandemonium at the busy Seme Border, linking Nigeria with the Benin Republic, yesterday, when some smugglers, helped by some villagers, gathered into a large mob to unleash mayhem at the border, killing a senior Nigerian Customs Service  (NCS) officer and setting his car ablaze at the Ashipa area of Seme.

The smugglers were obviously on a revenge attack over the alleged killing of one of their own by a Customs officer, a report that the Command had earlier debunked.

The deceased Customs officer, whose name was not immediately known, was said to be in his official uniform unarmed and driving to the Command’s headquarters for a routine meeting before he was attacked at about 9.50am by the mob who forced him out of his car. Allegedly encouraged by an identified chief of the community, the officer was murdered in cold blood and his vehicle set ablaze.

The mob went on to set more vehicles ablaze including a truck loaded with cargoes worth millions of naira and a Toyota Hilux van.

It took the intervention of a team of officers of the Nigerian Army who were drafted from the nearby Ibereko Barracks to the border, to maintain law and order. A member of the mob was heard saying, “We must fight back. The killing is becoming too many at this place,.

But the NCS in a statement released after the incident, the Command’s Public Relations Officer, Mr Ernest Olottah, said, “It is worth noting that the intensification of our anti-smuggling operation which has led to the making of over 686 seizures since January 2013, has placed us on the danger of attacks like this from criminals who are being prevented from using the border for the anti-economic and other nefarious activities.”

He noted that due to the uncompromising stance of the Customs operatives against smuggling and the need to protect the nation’s economy, the officers had come under series of attacks by smugglers and some unpatriotic elements who he said, see smuggling as their right.