Vice President seeks inter-agency collaboration to fight smuggling

dimeji akinloye

September 22, 2015 11:58 PM

He gave the indication when he received officials of the National Boundary Commission at the State House.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo

The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, said on Tuesday that the fight against smuggling in the country could be won through inter-agency collaboration.

The Vice President said the Federal Government would explore means of ensuring that relevant agencies partner and coordinate effectively to deal with the economic malaise on Nigeria’s borders.

He urged the commission to work closely with the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) in "identifying actual points where smuggling is taking place’’.

Osinbajo, who is the chairman of the commission’s board, expressed appreciation with the work of the commission and the detailed presentation it made during the visit and called for improvement.

Earlier, the Director-General of the Commission, Dr Mohammed Ahmad, said it was saddled with problems of funding, straddling settlements and re-establishment of destroyed/missing boundary pillars.

He also cited the problem of demographic movements with the emergence of new settlements.

Ahmad later told State House correspondents that the briefing was to alert the Vice President on the issues that required the attention of the Federal Government.

He said that the commission was attending to the resolution of the boundary between Kogi, Anambra and Enugu States to determine where the mineral resources in the region were located.

He, however, said the commission was awaiting the outcome or vacation of the dispute between the Soku and Engeni people of the Niger Delta region, which was before the Supreme court, before it could intervene further.

dimeji akinloye