Customs Boss Speaks On Curbing Fuel Smuggling In Nigeria

The acting Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), Wale Adeniyi, has said the issue of fuel smuggling in the country will take time to completely eradicate.

Adeniyi made the comment on Tuesday while speaking to State House correspondents after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

The Customs boss said some border areas have reported seizures of fuel, adding that the rate of smuggling has considerably reduced.

He expressed hope that ongoing policies being implemented by the current administration would completely eliminate fuel smuggling across borders.

He said: “Well, sometimes we just want to assume that because of the subsidy, the problem will evaporate one day. So the sense  I was trying to create was that it might take some time before the issue of smuggling of fuel across the border will completely dissipate.

“So in some border areas, we had reports of seizures of fuel and that is what we heard. So it was the assumption generally, that because the fuel is now sold at N500 per lit will be a disincentive for smuggling.

“But contrary to that, we have seen that they are smuggling it across the borders. Thethe rate at which this is being smuggled has reduced considerably.

“And it is our hope that by the time we mix some of these other policies that the government is working on, it will completely eliminate the problems of smuggling of fuel across borders.”