The
Customs Area Controller, Western Marine Command, Mr Yusuf Umar, on Tuesday said
that some of its officers would soon proceed to Oron, Akwa Ibom, on marine
training during the first quarter of the year.
Umar
tmade the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in
Lagos.
According
to him,” we intend to send some of our officers to Oron, where they will undergo
some training in terms of our activities in the maritime industry.
“They
(officers) will learn everything that has to do with marine operations,” he
said.
He
said the command was being given a face lift as approved by the
Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC), Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko, who also directed
the commencement of a new jetty to boost operations.
“The
CGC has approved a new jetty for us and the contractor has already been
mobilised to site. Anytime from now, work will start.
Umar said the construction of the jetty would have started but for two patrol
vessels that were undergoing dry-docking at the old jetty.
He
told NAN that the command would take delivery of the two new patrol boats which
the comptroller-general promised since 2013.
“The
vessels you talked about have already been built. They are in Turkey right now
and we expecting them any moment from now.
“One
for the Western Marine and the other one for the Eastern Marine.
“Apart
from that, we have refurbished two of our flying boats and gunboats. We have
fixed the engines and we are painting them, because you cannot achieve desired
results without tools.
“I
feel it should be my primary responsibility to make sure that we have enough
boats so that our officers and men can go round all the creeks.
“We
have so many creeks. If we fix these boats, they can meander and criss-cross
all these creeks to make sure that all the nefarious activities going on as far
as smuggling is concerned are nipped in the bud and to also achieve the desired
results,” he said.
Umar
said that as decided by the management of the NCS, names of the operatives who lost
their lives in active service against smugglers some years ago, would be
engraved on one of the new patrol boats to be received.
