The Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali, (retd.) Thursday, announced that the service would be having a diplomatic meeting with the Ambassador of Turkey on Friday (today) – to address the spate of illegal of weapons into the country.

Highlights:

• The Tin Can Island command of the service on Tuesday uncovered another container suspected to contain yet another cache of arms imported from Turkey – According to Col. Ali, the importer had falsely declared the recent consignment as elbow plumbing plastics.
• The illicit trade had been ongoing for the past seven months, maintaining that this seizure brought to a total of 2,671 rifles seized within the last eight months.
• The interception of 470 rifles came barely one week after the command intercepted a 20-foot container load of 1,100 pump-action rifles.

Excerpts:

• “Tomorrow, we will be having a diplomatic meeting with the Ambassador of Turkey specifically on this issue, this is one of the steps being taken outside the shores of the country to address this illicit trade.
• “We have found out that the people bringing in these weapons are Nigerians. There are syndicates in Turkey who are manifesting these weapons. We are yet to get to the bottom of the whole issue. We will investigate to know if these weapons are meant for commercial purposes or group of insurgents or agitators.”

Omoleye Omoruyi

Omoleye Omoruyi… an apprentice web/game developer, novelist, sensitive to happenings in the world. Meet him @Lord_rickie on Twitter/Instagram