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Customs Corner

Anti Corruption War: EFCC, Customs Lack Public Data on Recovered Assets

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Public Data on Recovered Assets

Anti Corruption War: EFCC, Customs Lack Public Data on Recovered Assets

Nigeria’s foremost anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and the Nigeria Custom Service, both government agencies fighting corruption, have no public data system that engenders transparency in the management of recovered assets.

The News Digest reports that, whilst taking a look at the data management system of these anti corruption agencies, discovered that the absence of such public data erodes confidence in the anti-corruption crusade of government.

The EFCC was established in 2003, with the mandate to investigate financial crimes such as advanced fee fraud (419) and money laundering.

Headquartered in Abuja, it operates under the Economic and Financial Crimes Establishment Act in 2004.

The major duty of the EFCC is to rid Nigeria of economic and financial crimes, and to effectively coordinate the domestic efforts of the global fight against money laundering and terrorists financing.

Need for Public Data in Anti-Corruption Fight–Experts

A lawyer, Kehinde Awosusi, said it is essential that people are carried along in the fight against corruption.

“Issues like how recovered assets are utilized should be top of the priority of anti-corruption agencies.

In fact, from the legal perspective, it is important that the processes that take place after recoveries remain open for all.

We cannot tackle corruption when the proceeds become not transparent. People lose trust in the system,” he noted.

Another expert, Mr. Taiwo Akinlade, stated that while the fight against corruption must go on, Nigerians must begin to see the anti-corruption agencies as transparent and worthy of trust.

“One of the ways to help the fight against corruption is to ensure that all Nigerians are stakeholders and we cannot achieve this without public data.

If the website and other accessible means of weighing options are not available then we need to start asking questions from those in power about their real interest in the fight against corruption,” he stressed.

For Hamza Lawal who leads the ‘Follow the money initiative’, the lack of public data is a big dent on the anti corruption fight

“We need to start asking questions on how the government is managing recovered assets.

It is important that the public has access to utilization of recovered assets and funds. The issue is that we need to take a look at the constitutional provisions on this issue and review the 1999 constitution so as to enable revelation of these details” he noted.

“I agree that there is a lack of Public data that Nigerians can access to see how far the fight against corruption has gone and how all assets recovered are utilized” he further stressed.

On how the Freedom of Information act can be used to ensure revelation on assets are utilized, he noted that there is more to be done to make the Freedom of Information act effective.

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Olanrewaju Suraju, the head of Civil Society Network Against Corruption (CISNAC) while commenting noted that beyond blaming the anti-corruption agencies, the federal government should be blamed too.

“ The Federal government has refused to pass the Proceeds Recovery bill that will help us solve the assets issue of tracking how recovered funds and assets are managed and spent.

“You know all funds and are managed by the nation’s treasury account so it may be hard for the anti-corruption agencies to reveal information on this because they are not even empowered to do such revelation but with the Proceeds recovery act, we will have resolution of this.”

Olanrewaju noted that the Freedom of Information act is not enough to tackle the issue of lack of declaration on recovered assets.

“The freedom of information bill only tells you what you ask but we should have a database that people can access without having to go through the rigors of the freedom of information bill” he noted

Public Data on EFCC Website

Checks on the website of the EFCC shows little or no extensive public data on the massive assets and funds recovered over the years.

Also, the website shows a Freedom of Information (FoI) Page which describes how to get access to information, such as day-to-day activities of the Commission.

Final records, conclusive data, decisions, determinations which are of value to any individual are said to be available upon request.

Notable on the website are records of what the commission did with some recovered loot.

On the website there is also the page for projects and news page about public data on utilization of recovered assets, but this is not comprehensive.

Further checks equally revealed that only three cases were listed by the commission to explain what recovered assets were used for.

Exploring the FoI Act

Exploring the Freedom of Act as part of this investigation, a letter was written to the commission taking advantage of the publicly provided portal for making requests.

After seven days, the Commission failed to either acknowledge receipt of the letter or respond to the request to provide information on utilization of recovered assets by the commission between 2018 and 2020.

Evidently, the Commission, not replying to the letter, reneged on its claim of transparency and openness as stated on its website.

According to the statement on the website of the Commission, only information that can jeopardize the judicial process will not be released.

However, despite meeting the requirements for the information requested through the FoI Act to be released, the commission failed to reply to the enquiry.

Our Constraints in Making Data Public – EFCC Spokesperson

In the course of investigation the spokesman of the EFCC Mr. Dele Oyewale was contacted, He said that it will be hard for the Commission to release to the public details on recovered assets as there are processes to report such recovered assets.

“You know asset recovery is a continual process and we may give information and it changes tomorrow,” Mr Dele said.

He further disclosed that some of the recoveries are not feasible for reportage due to the provision of the law that guides against such.

He stated that the Commission has remained very transparent to the best of the provisions and enablement.

On the Freedom of Information Act, the image maker of the Commission said if any request is sent following the FoI Act, there is need for a follow-up to such request.

“You need to still follow-up such freedom of information requests,” he noted.

This is coming seven days after the request was not made by this reporter on utilization of assets, but no acknowledgement or reply was made to the request.

FoI Act Should be Strengthened – CISLAC

Mr. Auwal Ibrahim Musa, the Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), while scoring the anti-corruption fight of President MuhammaduBuhari’s administration, said the FoI Act needs to be strengthened.

Rafsanjani also called for the empowerment of the anti-corruption agencies and demarcation of their roles to prevent a situation where “the police would not be doing the work of ICPC, ICPC would be doing the work of EFCC and EFCC would not be doing the work of Code of Conduct Bureau.”

He further added: “The boards of anti-corruption agencies are not functional. The ICPC board is not complete. There is no way you can run an agency as a one-man show. If you don’t have the board that can regulate the conduct of even the chairman himself, you would, instead of curing the problem, create more.”

Nigerian Customs Service

The Nigerian customs could be said to have been established a little over a century ago, as far back as 1891.

The service has three major departments, each headed by a Deputy Comptroller-General.

The Departments according to the information on the official site of the commission are; Corporate Service and Economic Relations; Tariff and Trade and enforcement, Investigation and Inspection.

With four zones, the NCS has 25 area commands. Some of the functions of the service includes; collection of revenue, anti-Smuggling activities, Security functions, manifest processing and working in collaboration with other government agencies in all approved ports and border stations.

A check on the NCS website, at the time of filing this report, shows that among the list of prohibited items by the commission includes: used motor vehicles above 15 years from the date of manufacture.

Investigation gathered that seized vehicles awaiting auction, are detained at border stations, seaports commands and at Federal Operation Units (FOU) in Lagos, Owerri, Benin, Bauchi, Kaduna and Kano.

On July 3rd, 2017, the NCS, in a bid to make seized/recovered vehicles available for auction in the public domain launched an E-auction application via apptrade.

But checks on the platform shows that the Service last auctioned a vehicle in public in 2017, leaving most of the vehicles ‘rotting’ away with the public not having access to usage or utilization.

Checks also revealed that the Service does not have a public data revealing seized or recovered vehicles.

Further investigation on the Service website showed that while documents such as E-auction procedure, PAAR Consignment Quick guide, among others are uploaded on the site, data on the number of recovered vehicles, the updates on utilization of the vehicles are missing.

Besides the poorly updated website of the Service, the section tagged “auction activities” of the Service was last updated in 2010.

This lack of adequate public data has always made it easy for corruption to thrive in handling of recovered vehicles in the agency.

For instance, earlier this year, in February, a former Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Abdulllahi Dikko was accused of corruption.

Part of what he was accused of stealing includes 17 exotic vehicles. The vehicles were allegedly recovered from his warehouse in Kaduna.

Dikko had allegedly returned N1.5bn which was said to be proceeds of the crime to the government.

A report by Fisayo Soyombo exposed the massive corruption at the Nigerian Customs Service, mostly strengthened by lack of accessible public data.

Worse still, the Media rights agenda (MRA), had in September 2019, inducted the Customs Service into the hall of shame for not properly dis-emanating proper information as dictated by the Freedom of Information Act.

NCS Shuns Inquiry on Recovered Vehicles

This reporter sent a mail to the email address of the Nigerian Customs.

However, the mail sent to info@customs.gov.ng was neither acknowledged nor replied.

The mail requested details of auctioned vehicles, details of recovered vehicles and utilization of recovered vehicles, all in the last five years.

It’s Wrong To Say We’ve Poor Public Data–Customs Spokesman

The Spokesman of the Nigerian Customs, Joseph Attah, denied that the Service lacks public data.

According to him, the agency has accessible data and is very transparent with information.

He said that no agency in Nigeria can compete with the Nigerian Customs when it comes to providing public data.

Attah said on the publication page of the website of NCS, there are constant updates on seizures and revenues generated from such seizures.

Facts Prove Otherwise

As at the time of writing this report, the publication page of NCS’s website has remained poorly utilized.

For instance, the news page of the Nigerian Customs was last updated on January 17, 2020, for an event that occurred in 2019 ( The Scorecard of Tincan Island Port In 2019).

Another press statement was published on December 4, 2019.

The Media reports section is updated with the last update coming as at April 13th, 2012 (CGC Gets Fresh mandate as WCO Regional vice Chair), another was published in 2006.

The last update for auction activities was on October 13, 2010 (October 13th, 2010 List of Pre-qualified Contractors consultants 3).

The conferences and seminar section was last updated in 2011, May 7, to be precise with the lead “Third Ordinary Meeting of the African Union Sub-Committee of Directors General of Customs”.

Budgetary Allocation

The NCS does not have good public data despite the large budgetary allocations given to it. For instance in 2020, NCS received over 200 billion naira amid concerns by Senators.

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Customs Corner

COWA Oyo/Osun Customs Area Command Visits Ibadan Orphanage, Shows Support for Children.

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Author: Vivian Daniel.

The COWA Chairperson of the Nigeria Customs Service, Oyo/Osun Area Command, Mrs Nnneamaka Oramalugo has led a delegation on a heart-warming visit to two motherless babies’ homes in Ibadan, Oyo State.

This was contained in a press release signed by the Command’s Public Relations Officer, Superintendent of Customs, Kayode Wey, on behalf of the COWA Chairperson, noted that the visit occurred on Saturday, March 23, 2024.

The visit was in a bid to carry on the legacy and policy thrust of the National President of the Customs Officers Wives Association (COWA), Mrs Kikelomo Adewale Adeniyi, to alleviate the prevailing economic hardship being faced by Nigerians across the nation.

The Oyo/Osun COWA Chairperson, Mrs Nnneamaka Oramalugo emphasised that the noble visit to Child Care Home for Abandoned, Rescued Children and Juvenile Correctional as well as Home School for Handicapped Children located in Ibadan Oyo State was to extend love, care, and support to the children residing in these homes.

She was accompanied by members of COWA and some other officials from the Oyo/Osun Customs Area Command on what was termed as “a compassionate mission to bring joy and comfort to the lives of the children at the motherless babies’ homes.” The delegation also arrived at these homes with gifts, essential supplies and provisions generously donated by members of COWA.

During the visit, Mrs. Nneamaka warmly engaged with the children in various fun activities. The atmosphere was filled with laughter, smiles, and heartfelt moments as the children embraced the love showered on them by the COWA delegation.

She expressed her deep gratitude to the staff and caregivers of the motherless babies’ homes for their relentless commitment to providing an appropriate environment where the children under their care are well-nourished while reiterating the COWA’s unwavering support for other initiatives aimed at improving the welfare and well-being of such vulnerable members of society.

The Oyo/Osun COWA Chairperson stated that the visit to the motherless babies’ homes exemplifies COWA’s core values of compassion, empathy, and community service. It also underscores the organisation’s commitment to making a positive impact in the lives of the less-privileged and empowering women in society.

Furthermore, Mrs. Nneamaka Oramalugo presented palliative like Rice, Indomie Noddles, Toiletries and Detergent to Widows of Deceased Officers, as well as Widowers whose wives were registered members of COWA.

On behalf of the children, the staff and caregivers of the motherless babies’ homes expressed their gratitude and thanked the COWA Chairperson and member of the Association for their visit to the respective homes.

They also stated that the compassionate gesture and philanthropic efforts are highly appreciated, as they look forward to receiving more of such gestures, which they believe would go a long way to aid adequate provisions, especially, during this period of untold economic hardship in the country.

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Customs Corner

COWA FOU ‘A’ Calls for Women Empowerment, Donates Items to Widows

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COWA FOU 'A' Calls for Women Empowerment, Donates Items to Widows

By Lucy Nyambi

The Customs Officers Wives Association (COWA) Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone A chapter has called for women’s empowerment to create a better world.

Members of the association turned up for a seminar at the Unit on Saturday, 23rd March, 2024, in commemoration of International Women’s Day.

Speaking at the event, the chairperson of COWA FOU ‘A’, Jumoke Ejibunu, emphasised that this year’s theme, “Inspire Inclusion,” aligns with the vision of COWA’s National President.

She stated, “COWA National President, Kikelomo Adeniyi, is committed to genuine change with her humanitarian passion for empowering women and skills acquisition. COWA should be hopeful of better days ahead.”

Ejibunu encouraged women to showcase themselves fully, saying, “As a woman, believe in yourself, know your strengths and abilities, love yourself, absorb knowledge, empower yourself, and be open to change.”

As part of efforts to improve women’s health, the women were educated on awareness and management of menopause by Dr Alfa Suleiman, the FOU ‘A’ Medical Doctor.

The highlight of the event was the presentation of food items to widows.

Recipients expressed appreciation to COWA for the kind gesture and also extended gratitude to the National President for revitalising the association.

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Customs Corner

Customs, Police Trail Perpetrators of Yauri Outstation Criminal Attack

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Customs, Police Trail Perpetrators of Yauri Outstation Criminal Attack

…As Area Controller Holds Closed-Door Meeting With Kebbi State Governor

By Abass Quadri

The Nigeria Customs Service, in collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force and other sister security agencies, launched a manhunt for criminals who attacked Customs officers while performing their legitimate duties at the Yauri outstation in Kebbi state.

According to a press statement signed by the command’s Public Relations Officer, Superintendent of Customs Mohammed Salisu stated that the incident occurred on Thursday, 21 March 2024, when the officers thwarted smuggling activities at Yauri Waterside.

The statement reads, “In the late hours of Thursday, March 21, 2024, at about 23:10 hours, the combined team of Yauri outstation and Surveillance were informed of suspected smuggling activity at the Yauri waterside. Upon arriving at the scene, 41 bags of foreign parboiled rice were seized, secured, and taken to the outstation.

“Afterward, a mob attack was launched by the aggrieved smugglers by mobilising hoodlums to attack the outpost.”

Superintendent of Customs Mohammed Salisu explained that swift intervention from Kebbi Command and other sister agencies helped contain the situation.

He noted that the Officer in charge sustained a hand injury, while “1 AK47 rifle was carted away but retrieved shortly, and 29 out of 41 bags of the seized rice were taken away by the attackers.

“The mob went further to vandalise personnel vehicles, the outstation ACs, chairs, tables, windows, doors, and other essentials put in place to support the operations of the outstation.”

He further stated that the Kebbi State Governor, Nasir Idris, has hosted the Customs Area Controller, Iheanacho Ojike, to discuss the way forward, while also stating that the CAC has been in touch with the state Commissioner of Police, leading to some arrests and investigations launched to prosecute the criminals.

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