Raid on Ibadan markets: Residents lament as Customs favours Kastina traders

 

• urge senate president, Lawan to intervene

 

Residents of Oyo state have lamented the failure and reluctance of men of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to return the bags of rice and other valuables allegedly carted away during the recent raid on Ibadan markets as they favoured Katsina traders whose goods were returned.

It will be recalled that operatives from the Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) had earlier stormed Bodija and Oja’ba markets in Ibadan, Oyo State, and went away with an unknown number of bags of rice, loaded in trucks. They were alleged to have broken into warehouses, stores and shops containing the bags of rice to carry out the act.

The residents, also urged the senate president, Mr. Ahmed Lawan and other lawmakers at the National Assembly to intervene as the affected traders are just recovering from the last year’s economic meltdown caused by COVID-19, only to be witnessing this.

They raised the alarm shortly after the senators had instructed men of the NCS to return all the goods seized from the traders in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State.

One of the residents, Zacchaeus Taiwo who expressed concern over the failure of the officers to return the goods to the traders, noted that while Katsina traders’ goods were returned to them after they had been allegedly carted away by the Nigeria Customs Service , there’s no need to continue withholding the goods seized in Ibadan, not even when the senators’ had directed the agency to return the goods it seized from shops of rice traders in Ibadan.

Taiwo, however maintained that the operatives should not give preferential treatment to Katsina traders only, adding that continuous seizure of Ibadan traders’ goods at their disposal amounts to injustice and unfairness.

Also, Adewale Qassim submitted that the action taken by the NCS to return the goods belonging to Katsina traders justifies that they only cared for the traders coming from the state at the expense of the ones in Ibadan, Oyo State.

Qassim stressed that the officers who led the Katsina’s shops’ raid had been dismissed, while same decision has not been taken against the ones who led similar raids on Ibadan markets.

“Men of the NCS only returned the Katsina traders’ goods because they are from President Muhammadu Buhari’s state”, he alleged.

Another resident that chose to be anonymous requested that operatives of the Nigerian Customs Service who carried out the dastardly and illegal act should be brought before the temple of justice.

He maintained that an action taken by them could make people resort to self-help and self-defense, while governments fail to do the needful.

He, however enjoined the national assembly to caution men of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) so as to avoid carrying out an act, which is an aberration to the act that established and sustains the agency.