The Seme Chapter Chairman of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Onyekachi Ojinma, has called that he would continue to call the attention of the police authorities over the multiple security checkpoints on Seme/Mile 2 Expressway ,until something drastic is done.
Ojinma said the activities of police operatives manning the checkpoints were a threat to free movement of goods and persons.
“Rather than reduce, the illegal checkpoints, they continue to increase.This is happening even when the Federal Government has opened all land borders without conditions, prompting the ANLCA leadership to wonder at what the operatives of Border Drill are still doing at the Border road.
“All land borders have been reopened by the Federal Government. The policemen and soldiers that make up Border Drill have no business being at the border road again.
What are they still doing? They should be withdrawn.”
Another freight forwarder, Innocent Elum, Board Secretary, Association of Registered Freight Forwarders, Nigeria (AREFFN), observed that the border closure policy lacked any justification. According to him, it ended up bringing untold hardship to freight forwarders and importers, many of whom he noted, died of heart break.
Elum also faulted Federal Government’s ban on importation of vehicles through the land borders, saying, “It is a dangerous policy that only encourages smuggling and enriches pockets of the security operatives on the road. Many importers of new brand vehicles do not patronize the ports; they smuggle their consignments through the land borders with active connivance and under the cover of the security agents on the road. Government will be doing itself and Nigerians a lot of good if it lifts the ban”.
