The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has removed Hussein Ejibunu as the Controller, Federal Operations Unit Zone A, Ikeja, Lagos.
Replacing Ejigbunu, who was redeployed to the Customs Headquarters in Abuja, is Kola Oladeji, the former Coordinator, Borders Drill Sector 4, northwest axis.
Also quietly eased out was Ahmadu Shuaibu as Controller of Ogun 1 Area Command of the NCS; he was moved to head the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) in the Kaduna Area Command, and has been replaced with James Ojo.
According to FIJ’s sources in the NCS, the redeployment of Ejigbunu and Shuaibu were done to limit the spotlight on the service, following a series of ‘good morning’ tweets by ‘Fisayo Soyombo, founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), as a follow-up to his undercover investigation titled ‘Undercover As A Smuggler’. However, to protect the duo from embarrassment, their redeployment was announced as part of a wider shake-up in the service.
Ejigbunu first came under the spotlight on February 28, when FIJ reported that motorcycles used by bandits and insurgents to inflict terror on innocent civilians, as well as hard drugs, including tramadol, were among the goods being smuggled into northern Nigeria by the NCS, using Ibrahim Egungbohun Dende, better known as IBD Dende, as conduit.
On March 1, FIJ reported how IBD Dende, the biggest smuggler in southwestern Nigeria, threatened to kill an Assistant Superintendent of Customs (ASC) who stopped the smuggling of his goods from Benin Republic into Nigeria.
In the first of the two videos attached to the story, a frantic and irate Dende can be heard repeatedly telling the Customs officer, whom he simply identified as Rotimi: “May it never be well with you.”
Despite wielding guns, all the Customs officers in the footage can be seen pacifying Dende, imploring him to calm down. Dende can also be seen bragging, “I have called Ejigbunu”, and ordering the receiver at the other end of the phone: “Call Wale, call Wale.”
The said ‘Wale’ is Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, a Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) and current Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC). Meanwhile, ‘Ejigbunu’ is Hussein Ejigbunu, the now former FOU Zone A conptroller.
Dende’s repeated boasts about calling Ejigbunu confirm FIJ’s exclusive on how the NCS streamlined the passage of smuggled goods in all six states that make up Zone A to Oja-Odan, Dende’s stronghold, alone, with Ejigbunu detailed to monitor the movements.
“You will find out that the teeth are sharper than the knife. I will show you that I am Dende,” Dende can be heard screaming in the video, while an apparently scared Rotimi can be heard wondering: “What have I done? He is threatening to kill me.”
As can be seen and heard in the second video, one of Dende’s grouses is that Customs officers were also smuggling rice while his own consignment was intercepted.
“I saw your boss’s trailer — four trailers that loaded rice — in Seme,” he can be heard saying. “What did you do about it? I will not accept it! I have told Ejigbunu I will not agree!”
SOURCE: FIJ
