Top Tweets for #EndCustoms

Four days ago, I tweeted that Rollykings Hotel and Suites was “one of the many hotels in smuggling zones owned by Customs officers”. I have since discovered that Rollykings is indeed owned by a Customs agent — not a Customs officer. I make this clarification, on the one hand, in full knowledge that adherence to journalistic truth telling necessitates recantations like this when facts get mixed up; but also, on the other hand, that mouthpieces of the people whose shady livelihoods I have punctured over the last one month have found something to hold on to. Of course, everything else I’ve written so far remains the truth, in defence of which I will tender evidence and witnesses if needed in court. In my nearly-daily tweets holding the Nigeria Customs Service to account for the past two weeks, I have noted, for example, the unusually high number of hotels owned by Customs officers in smuggling zones and border towns. I am certain it is no happenstance: (i) Bradevic Hotel Aradagun, Badagry, owned by Customs officer Moses Emayo, OC Federal Operations Unit Zone A, Ikeja; true. (ii) Rao International Hotel and Suites, Km 15 Sango-Idi-Iroko Road, owned by Customs officer Najeem Akorede, popularly called ‘Najeem Custom’; true. (iii) Ar-Rakhab Beach and Holiday Resort in Badagry, owned by a retired Customs officer better known by his alias ‘Ashimi’; true. There are more hotels by Customs officers on my list that I haven’t yet named. And so the question remains valid: why are active and retired Customs officers the owners of the poshest hotels in border towns? Why hotels, why border towns, why smuggling zones? Why don’t medical doctors, surgeons, mechanical engineers, software engineers, teachers, professors, accountants, lawyers, tech bros, security experts want to own these hotels in these smuggling zones? Why mainly Customs officers, Customs agents and smugglers? Beyond the hotels, I’ve written about: (iv) how many rice warehouses in border towns are owned by Customs officers’ wives; (v) how Akeem Adigun, the notorious but tiring smuggler better known as ‘Socopao’, got two of his sons Razak and Bolaji into Customs by bribing his way through; (vi) how Owolabi Alaka and Shakiru Labeabo, two citizens who tipped Customs officers with information on smugglers, were murdered in Ado-Odo, very close to Seme border; (vii) how an informant contacted some senior officers with privileged information on IBD Dende smuggling drugs, arms and ammunition into the country, only for the informant’s number to become blacklisted; (viii) how, between 2016 and 2021 alone, Customs officers killed at least 32 innocent bystanders and petty smugglers in the Ogun West Senatorial District while chasing petty smugglers, all the while striking deals with big-time smugglers to grant them thoroughfare; (ix) and how Customs officers are permanently lodged for free at the Ilaro hotel of IBD Dende, a notorious smuggler and gunrunner, something tantamount to policemen enjoying free lodging in an armed robber’s hotel! All these and many more to come remain nothing but the truth. The rot in the Nigeria Customs Service is of monumental proportions, and continues to undermine national security and economic development. I’ll continue spotlighting it until I move on to the next story. Unfortunately for the NCS, that won’t be anytime soon!