Controller, Seme-Krake Border Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service, Comptroller Timi Bomodi.

The Controller of the Seme Command of the Nigeria Customs Service, Comptroller Timi Bomodi has been speaking on the Command’s impressive revenue generation for the 2023 fiscal year, which grew by over 322per cent. He attributed this feat to several factors, which include the dismantling of some checkpoints on the ever-busy trade corridor on assumption of duty, which has boosted traders’ confidence.

In a recent interview, the Comptroller also disclosed that the Command is currently working on a Skills Acquisition Centres SAC for dwellers within the border towns and villages as a way of giving them genuine sources of livelihood so as to shun smuggling and other criminal activities.

Recall that the Command had surpassed its revenue target for 2023 by N3.9 billion, as it collected a total of N5.9 billion in revenue for the 2023 fiscal year, which represents a growth of 322 per cent.

Available records show that in addition to over surpassing its 2022 revenue figures by N1.4billion, the Command also exceeded the set target by N3.9billion, which stakeholders have described as superlative, given that the border was just returning to business after several years of closure.

According to the CAC, “This could be as a result of many factors, as I said one of the first things I did was to dismantle a number of checkpoints that had existed before now. Again, we had a closure of Niger border, that again impacted on the revenue of this command. Trade that would have been occurring in other parts of the country some of them got moved to our side. There are also other factors. Again, that was why our expected revenue was jerked up to N7billion.

Shedding more light on the proposed skill acquisition centre, which would be replicated across all borders in the country, is the Commands idea of providing gainful, legitimate source of livelihood to border community dwellers as an alternative to smuggling, arguing that smuggling has been a global challenge not limited to Nigeria alone.

He said: “As we all know, no country in the world including more advanced economies like the U.S. has successfully wiped out smuggling. America has not succeeded in wiping out smuggling; It is a global phenomenon. What we are trying to do here is to reduce it to the barest minimum. Here we have identified certain peculiarities and it is not only at the Seme krake Border axis that the centre will be established.

“The skill acquisition is something that is common to borders especially all over Nigeria and in the entire West Africa, and it is a fact that most border communities lack basic infrastructure and there are little or no jobs there. So we are trying to adopt another approach, which is human angle instead of use of force. People will lend themselves to some of these illegal activities when they perceive they can’t get jobs and not because they want to break the laws but because they want to survive.

“So what we are trying to do here with the approval of the Comptroller General is to set up Skills Acquisition Centres SAC, which is novel and hopefully will be replicated across Nigerian borders. The Skills Acquisition Centres will provide multiple opportunities for border community dwellers to be trained in different vocations. You have people to be trained on how to make clothes, some wood-works, catering etc.

“As soon as they are equipped with these skills, they have something to exchange for money and make career out of it rather than waiting for non-existent jobs. We believe that these people can actually, with the right incentives, become employers of labour. If two per cent of the population of border community dwellers participate in this programme, in less than five years, we can change the narrative of border community dwellers because there is a potential for exponential increase in earnings.

“In adopting this particular strategy, the community dwellers will know that they can now feed themselves and their families. When the community dwellers can take care of their livelihood, then the tendency to lend themselves to smuggling will be reduced if not erased completely. Overtime, they will come to the realisation that in doing their legitimate trades and vocations, there is nothing to be afraid of anymore. There fear that their goods would be seized will no longer be there.”

Comptroller Bomodi however expressed profound gratitude to the Comptroller General of the Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR for providing purposeful leadership for the Service, which, he argued had impacted positively on the officers and men.

He argued that the current management under Adeniyi has provided the operational tools, incentives and other morale-boosting welfare packages including accommodation for all cadres of personnel, adding that no one has any reason to complain in the current circumstance.