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The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has advocated for the use of drones, Close Circute Television (CCTV) and body cameras by its officers to monitor, fight and suppress smuggling activities in the country.
The Customs boss, Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, Deputy Comptroller Hussein Ejibunu, stated this at the 2022 Annual General Meeting of the League of Maritime Editors and Publishers at Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON), Topo, Badagry, Lagos.
According to the Controller, “the procurement and deployment of drones and CCTVs along the border areas will monitor the activities of smuggling and smugglers without necessarily deploying the field officers.
“A central monitoring centre will identify spots where offending items are stockpiled and with just one stop operation, the items will be evacuated under heavy detachment of officers.
“This will avert regular confrontations between officers and smugulers”, he said
He continued that “technologically equipped patrol vans and the use of body cameras by patrol officers will reduce to the bearest minimum most allegations of extortions levelled against officers while on patrol.
“The communication gadgets installed in patrol vans will also ease communication gaps between different patrol teams at different points. Should there be any crisis in any given location, reinforcement will not suffer hiccups”.
On trade facilitation, the Controller noted that “there is no gain saying, therefore, that trade facilitation has received a great boost with the introduction of technology at different levels to unbundle clearing procedure bottlenecks.
“The anti-smuggling operations have not received the much desired attention. But with the promise of Comptroller-General of Customs to procure and supply CCTVs and body cameras to the enforcement arm of the Service, it will completely change the narrative positively.
“The world being referred to as a global village is not borne out of rethorics but founded on advancement and development of technology in all aspects of human endeavours”.
Speaking earlier, the Moderator of the event, Otunba Kunle Folarin, who is the Chairman, Port Consultative Council (PCC) cum Chairman, National Seafarers Welfare Board (NSEB), noted that many countries in the world, particularly in Africa, have embraced information technology, saying that Nigeria has to embrace it too.
Folarin said in trade facilitation, the use of information technology “is the focal point. In trade facilitation, application of CCTV, digitalised technologies, social media, and the issue of surveillance are all necessary to enhance the trade facilitation”.
By: Nkpemenyie Mcdominic, Lagos
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