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| Tincan Island, Lagos. |
The level of notoriety in trade crimes in the Tin Can Island port has over the decades been without bound. And it is not as if trade malpractices are not committed in other seaports, but the preference of Tin Can port in Lagos is what has baffled many. Often times, one would learn from customs agents advising their importers against routing certain goods through the premier port, Apapa, but the Tin Can port.
The question is whether there is absence of checks in the seaport that has made some importers prefer the seaport as port of destination for either clear cases of contraband or when they want to commit other crimes. But there certainly cannot be absence of checks.
The statutory function of the Customs Service in addition to revenue collection is also to ensure that contraband related cargos are not allowed into the country. It is a security measure. That is why there is goods examination, either physically or through electronic scanning. But what determines the choice of a particular seaport as point of destination by importers depends on the attitude of the officers in any particular area (Wikipedia, 2010).
Some officers may decide to ignore or treat certain trade crimes with minimum penalty, a situation that may encourage more of such crimes. Or it could just be simple laxity in thorough checks once the importer or the agent plays smart by being magnanimous. A syndicate who would subject everybody to blackmail could be responsible for this.
And that is what many are pointing at as having been the case over the decades in Tin Can Island port.
The history of Tin Can in ports crime is astonishing, especially in the area of hard drugs and pockets of arms and ammunition seizure. The celebrated seizures of hard drugs recorded in the port include a container load of cocaine in 2006 by the Customs Command. The importers had walked into the hands of customs officials with the assistance of British Intelligence that had trailed the consignment.
In July 2007, there was also another seizure of N4bn hard drugs. In 2009, there was equally a seizure of N4.5billion cocaine concealed in tiles. In January 2011, there was a seizure, just like another container load of cocaine was seized in April last year which was abandoned at Okota Road, Lagos.
The importer had on taking delivery at Tin Can Island port abandoned the container half way to the warehouse on suspicion that the cargo was being trailed. Arms and ammunition have also been seized so many times.
But apart from these capital seizures, there have been regular trade crimes involving concealment of true quantity, under-declaration and under-invoicing by importers in order to short-pay government.
This is a regular crime in which government loses so much revenue every year. It was to check this that the Customs in 2012 made efforts to introduce duty benchmark which was overruled by the presidency following protests in the industry. About two years ago, some officers were queried as their passwords were used to clear some containers out of the seaport.
There have also been cases of containers being ‘flown out’ of the port without undergoing necessary processes. This scenario has in turn given the seaport a poor image, as a place where anything goes.
Therefore, our own security apparatus should rise to the challenges of the times with intelligence gathering and surveillance activities becoming technology driven. Technology driven intelligence gathering should preempt crimes, bust those that are on-going and facilitate investigations of a negligible few that happens to take place (Ibezimako, 2006).
One more justification for technology driven intelligence gathering and surveillance is that beside their speed and capacity for mass destruction, the magnitude of present day crimes transcends emphasis on the numerical strength of security personnel to curtail or defeat.
This is because criminals are already seizing the initiative by employing technology and expectedly, nullifying the numerical superiority of our law enforcement agents. After all, that is what technology is all about - achieving much more than humanly possible.
Therefore, with the present scenario, raising national security budgets appears to be attracting no proportional security or reduction in crime. Incidents of armed robberies, kidnappings, assassinations, religious fanaticism, ethnic wars and political thuggery appear rather to be on the rise.
The revolution in information and communication technologies (ICT) has opened communication gateways to both the good and the bad. Law abiding citizens and anarchists alike, now enjoy greater freedom of association and speech, made possible by information and communication technologies (Greer, 2010).
And if their disadvantages must not cancel out their advantages, Nigeria must monitor her telecommunication gateways as a necessary restraint on criminal and destructive usage. The longer we delay taking that decisive step, the more we lay bare our under-belly at the mercy of criminals and anarchists to whom ICT has become indispensable in the co-ordination and execution of their destructive activities.
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