Exposed: How Customs Officers Connive With Smugglers To Smuggle Guns, Ammunition To Nigeria

– Informant To The Rescue 

The Nigeria Customs Service is saddled with the responsibility of manning the country’s border, to ensure safety and control the importation of goods and commodities.

Essentially, the custom is to ensure that contraband goods and commodities are not allowed into Nigeria. 

But some officers of the customs service are more or less bad than the criminals they are to arrest.

Findings have so far revealed that some of the customer officers have been compromised by smugglers, while some of them have also been engaging in the smuggling of illicit items. 

Among the compromised customs officers are a set of officers at the Idiroko border axis of Ogun State. 

According to sources, the said customs officers, who are about 12 in number, have allegedly been conniving with smugglers to smuggle gun, ammunition and illicit items into the country. 

CityMirrorNews gathered that the customs officers and the smugglers allegedly had a warehouse at Odeogun community, Idiroko, Ipokia local government of Ogun State. 

The criminal relationship between the customs officers and the smugglers came to light when the chairman of the Odeogun community, Mr Adio Bayo, discovered that the warehouse where they stockpiled smuggled guns and ammunition. 

Sources in the community told this medium that Adio reported to the police who raided the warehouse, but neither the customs officers nor the smugglers were arrested, though none of them was available during the raid. 

However, Bayo, the Chairman of the community who reported the warehouse, have since become a haunted dog by both the customs officers and the smugglers, according to sources. 

Asked why Bayo was being haunted, the sources said some policemen had disclosed his identity to the customs officers and the smugglers as the person who came to report their warehouse. 

It was learnt that Bayo house located at 18, Odeogun Street, Idiroko, Ipokia Local Government of the state, has been burnt, rendering him and his wife homeless on Friday, June 23 of this year. 

According to the sources, the assailants had come to kill Bayo before setting his house on fire in anger when they did not meet him. 

The sources also disclosed that Bayo lost his five-month-old daughter to the inferno. 

Bayo had since been on the run, as the customs officers and the smugglers were reportedly looking for him to be killed. 

CitymirrorNews also learnt that Bayo’s father, Mr. Bayo Adesiyan Wale, was also attacked by some assailants allegedly to have been sponsored by the customs officers and the smugglers on July 18, 2023.

The aged father was reportedly shot dead when he refused to disclose the whereabouts of his son, Adio Bayo. 

As of the time of filing this report, both Bayo, his wife, and his children have reportedly maintained a low profile, as the assailants were on their trail.

All efforts to get Bayo on the phone proved abortive as his phone numbers were switched off when called. 

Meanwhile, the said warehouse has been demolished by the Odeogun community.