The Adamawa State chapter of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, has accused the Nigeria Customs Service of harassment and undue seizures of petrol belonging to its members.
The state Chairman of IPMAN, Alhaji Dahiru Buba, said during a press conference in Yola, that customs officers around the borders were now targeting legitimate businesses of IPMAN members and confiscating their product.
He said the action is causing huge financial losses to members and artificial scarcity and hike in price of petrol for the general public.
He alleged that five of his PMS trucks were seized, prompting him to write to the Comptroller General of Customs.
“Eventually, four of them were returned with an apology letter,” Buba said, adding however that nothing had been heard from the Customs after six more of his trucks carrying PMS were seized and he wrote again to the comptroller general.
“Several other illegal seizures were made in various privately owned filling stations,” he lamented.
He asked the customs service to cease its ‘illegal’ actions, and urged the National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu; Adamawa State Governor, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, and Governor Kefas Agbu of Taraba State to intervene.
Newspot reports that the Nigeria Customs Service administers Adamawa and Taraba states under an area command with headquarters in Yola, but recent heightened operations of the Service had been by a special unit running Operations Whirl Wind, which is tasked with tackling petrol smuggling from Nigeria to neigbouring countries.
Only on the 10th of this month, the Controller General of Customs, Bashir Adeniyi, had told newsmen in Yola that the special operations had within the first week of launch seized 150,950 litres of petrol around the country.
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