The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on has named those behind the importation 399 JOJEF pump-action rifles and other component parts into Tin-Can Island Port in Lagos State.
The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, named the importers of the weapons on Monday.
Adeniyi, who spoke in Lagos at the handing over the rifles to the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, identified the importers as Robert Eze and Ejiogu Godson.
He revealed that so far, 21,000 small arms and weapons have been received from the NCS since the inception of the Centre.
Handing over the rifles to the National Coordinator of the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, retired DIG Johnson Kokumo, he said: “Look carefully at what is laid out on these tables.
“Three hundred and ninety-nine rifles.
“Somebody paid for them.
“Somebody arranged their shipment.
“Somebody was waiting at this end to collect them.
“And somebody, somewhere in this country, was going to be on the wrong end of them.
“That is what we have gathered this morning to hand over to the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons.
“Let me tell you how they came to be on these tables.
“On the 8th of July, a container arrived at Tin Can Island Port aboard the vessel MV VELIKA.
“It was not opened because somebody had a suspicion, or because an officer happened to be passing.
“It was opened because our risk management system flagged it.
“Inside were firearm components, taken apart and hidden in knocked-down form.
“That is a deliberate method.
“It is chosen for one reason only, which is that a rifle in pieces does not look like a rifle.
“Now consider what that quantity of weapons would have done.
“Our country is contending with terrorism.
“With banditry.
“With kidnapping.
“With violent crime that has entered too many homes in this country.
“And not one of those afflictions can be carried out without a weapon in somebody’s hand.
“Weapons like these are not made in Nigeria.
“They are made elsewhere, and they reach us through the ports, the borders and the airports that this Service is charged with guarding.
“We are also approaching another electioneering season, and I do not need to describe to this audience what several hundred firearms in the wrong hands would mean for the peace of our communities or for the conduct of our democracy.
“I will say only this: that consignment did not reach its destination, and the officers of this Service are the reason.
“That container was found because of a system, and that system exists because this administration chose to invest in it. Under the Trade Modernisation Project, we have replaced manual processes with B’Odogwu, which brings clearance, automated risk management, cargo tracking and non-intrusive inspection onto a single platform.
“The purpose of that investment was never revenue alone.
