The Comptroller-General of Customs, retired Col.Hameed Ali and Turkish Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Hakan Cakil, have agreed to cooperate to stop the export of harmful items into both countries.
Ali announced this in a statement by the service public relations Officer, Mr Joseph Attah, on Tuesday, September 26, in Abuja.
Attah said the meeting was held due to concerns expressed by the general public over the recent seizures of pump actions riffles imported from Turkey.
He added that the aim of the meeting was to fashion out ways of dealing with the disturbing issues.
Attah said that Ali expressed concern that four different arms seizures with a total number of 2,671 pump action riffles came from one source.
According to him, the meeting lasted for about two hours, detailed with specific commitments and strategies to stem the ugly tide.
”The meeting ended with both sides agreeing to work together to stop the dangerous trend.
”Both agreed to use the situation as opportunity to strengthen ties to prevent the use of either country as a base for export of harmful items to the other,” Attah said.
Attah said that the highlights of the meeting included the Turkish ambassador restating his country’s support for Nigetia’s security and well being, saying that Turkey would not support any dangerous shipment to Nigeria.
”All the four shipments intercepted were false declarations on the bill of lading , it is a clear case of smuggling.”
”The Turkish ambassador will immediately communicate to his home with the view to fishing out criminals behind the illegal arms shipment to Nigeria.”
A team of Nigerian Customs will visit the Turkish Customs to further discus ways of nipping such arms export from Turkey and strengthening agreement on mutual customs-to-customs assistance.
The Nigeria Customs will provide for the Turkish authority list of prohibited items and in the case of arms, sample of end user certificate to enable them to always verify before approving any legal arms export to Nigeria.
Attah also stated that the Turkish government would co-operate with Nigeria in every step to deal decisively with those found involved.
The defendants – Mahmud Hassan, Oscar Okafor, Donatus Achinulo, Matthew Okoye, said to be at large, and Salihu Danjuma had been arraigned by the attorney general of the federation on June 14 before the Federal High Court in Lagos.
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