It was a bloody day for smugglers, Tuesday, when one of them was shot dead while three others were seriously wounded in a clash with men of the Nigeria Customs Service at an Ogun State downtown.
This much was revealed to our reporter when a team of angry smugglers invaded the Ogun State Governor’s office at Oke Mosan area of Abeokuta in protest for their dead and wounded colleagues.
The protresters accused Ogun customsmen of conniving with their Lagos counterparts to bilk them of their goods after receiving bribe money to pass the goods in Ogun State.
They narrated, “Every time goods arrive Ita-Osun, we put a call to them and they will come to collect money from us. We do this in order for them not to disturb us and they will still betray us by calling their colleagues from Ikeja-Lagos to accost us. Sometimes, they seize goods worth N5million from us, depending on how many cars we are able to acquire per day. Every time they collect N5,000 from us per car, if we are able to acquire 100 cars from our base at Ita-Osun, they collect N500,000.”
“Today, we were done with our business at our base at Ita-Osun and we were on our way when they suddenly attacked us at Orile-Imo area of Sagamu, Ogun state where one of us, Lekan, was shot in the chest and stomach, while inflicting severe gun wounds on three others,” calling on Governor Dapo Abiodun to come to their aid, saying: “We are here to appeal to the government to come to our aid, we don’t go to Cotonou to buy our cars and rice; we buy them here in Ogun state and they cannot continue to kill us like this. This is what we know how to do, as we can’t steal or do money rituals.”
Addressing the aggrieved protesters, Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Mr Tokunbo Talabi, appealed for calm, stressing that the matter will be thoroughly looked into as, according to him, the welfare of the citizens stands supreme.SHARE THIS
• Tag: Col Hameed Alli (rtd), Comptroller-General of Customs, Gov Dapo Abiodun