Customs has completely ignored the fight against corruption, says Sagay

Itse Sagay, chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), says the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has completely ignored the fight against corruption.

Speaking at the opening of a two-day programme on corruption, Sagay said the alleged rot at customs is “thumbing its nose at this administration and all Nigerians”.

He narrated an encounter which one of his family members had at the Tin Can Island, Lagos command of the organisation.

“An example of bold and brazen corruption, thumbing its nose at this administration and at all of us Nigerians is happening at the customs and excise department, which has completely ignored the fight against corruption; operating as if it is not in Nigeria,” he said.

“In December 2016, a cousin of mine whose family had resided in the USA for 26 years, was coming back home to settle. The family was not supposed to pay customs duties for household goods which they brought back for use in Nigeria.

“Nevertheless, bribe was demanded at every stage of the obstacle race called custom clearance – involving long table, short table and other ingenious instruments of extortion.

“During one of these illegal payments, my nephew feeling embarrassed at openly giving money to these parasites, tried to fold the money in a piece of paper.  The shameless extortionist shouted, ‘What are you hiding?  Is it not mere cash?  Let me have it like that’.  There is nothing to conceal.”

Admitting that the problem is not peculiar to customs alone, Sagay said: “Corruption is omnipresent in Nigeria. High and low office holders, public and private sector, the executive, legislative and judicial sectors, immigration, police, the civil service, everywhere.”

He also took a swipe at the national assembly, which he accused of not showing enough concern about the plight of Nigerians.

“The recklessness with which public officers spend public funds is insensitive to the point of insanity. Yes I mean that. The level of insensitivity has become pathological,” he said.

“Only a few months ago Nigeria was on fire because members of the national assembly bought cars costing over thirty million naira each with our money, in order to carry out so called oversight duties, during this period of financial drought and famine. We called them well deserved names, like cruel, inhuman, malevolent, etc.”