Smugglers get more daring on high sea

The current economic hardship confronting Nigerians has made smugglers plying their trade on waterways and along riverine communities in Lagos and Rivers states, respectively, to be more daring.
Their willingness to take bigger risks on the seas and streams has sent many residents of the riverine communities to their untimely graves in addition to making about N100billion every year from their illegal activities.
A week-long investigation by The Point revealed that many of the “flying boats” being used by these local sea pirates have grossly declined in quality, thereby putting lives on the line as they partly cram such vessels with rice and other food-stuffs in their daily struggle to evade arrest by the officials of both the Customs and Immigration.
According to a reliable source, the smugglers do not only smuggled food items, most especially rice, but also human beings.
A fisherman, Mr. Sunday Abena disclosed that, “Their activity on the water is posing a great danger to human lives as they sail on the water at breath-taking speed. It is usually with a combination of the declining quality of the boats they’re using – putting people onto anything that floats — and cramming more people onto boats. You need to come here at week days to see things for yourself.”
Abena, who conducted our reporter round some estuaries around his hut, said the water outlets were created by smugglers using them as hide-outs whenever they have running- battle with security agents.
“These outlets were created by the big-time smugglers who would naturally navigate through them during chases and pursuits,” he said.
Abena further told The Point that the activities of smugglers recently soared, following a strong measure taken by the government to tight the noose on illegal activities at the border- posts, especially, as they relate to the importation of food items.
“I think the drive to sustain life by escaping abject poverty has made many become emergency smugglers. Of course, many African countries still rely much on Nigeria, see it as the throes of the biggest influx of illegal immigrants. Poverty or not, there is this general belief that, once you enter into the country, you can always find something to do. But security agents at the border posts have made things hard. Hence, boat owners now make brisk business in transporting these illegal immigrants through unconventional routes that are only known to them. Some would even load their boats with rice and passengers, which is why, boats often collapse on the water whenever there is a surge or heavy waves,” he said.
It was learnt that the smugglers could take off from Morogbo Waterways through Osolu Kingdom, a journey of N300 by boat.
“They usually take off from the creek region in Badagry and come out under the bridge at Agbara from where goods such as rice would be transferred into a tipper before being transported down to their destination. Customs officers manning the road on top of the bridge would not be oblivious of what was going on underneath because the general belief was that the tipper lorries were only loaded with sand since the activities of dredgers are on-going 24 hours,” a source said. An operator at Takwa-Bay, Mr. Michael Menekute, told our Correspondent that he made much money ferrying goods and illegal immigrants through such routes as his take-home could amount to N40,000 daily. Menekute was, however, quick to add that when he started noticing the presence of police patrol boats on some of the routes he used to ply, he had a rethink.
“Security agents have seized the boats belonging to some of our members; because of this, I changed my mind. I suffered before I could raise money to buy the boat engine and the boat. And to own a good boat, you need about N800, 000. To lose it to either the Immigration or police or Customs Service, would not economically augur well, which is why I realized that, It is better to obey the law and continue doing business than to lose business and risk jail.
“About five months ago, the influx of migrants from the West African countries was somewhat embarrassing. Ordinarily, I did not see any inherent danger in it, but shortly after, when security agents started chasing us around, I began to see the real danger, though the migrants always cite ECOWAS Passport-free travel zone. Now, there appears to be an enhanced border patrol by the authorities who put a close check on passengers. So, ferrying migrants across this route to Lagos Island or Mile 2, as the case may be, could be cumbersome. “Storm riders,” who ferry these people do it mostly in the night,” he said.
An independent source, who just returned from Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, told The Point that activities of smugglers had never declined in the past five years.
According to him, “Efforts to stop smugglers on the sea have repeatedly been thwarted as they move in sophisticated fast-moving boats with which they ferry contraband. To complicate the matter, some of the migrants, who illegally came into the country through the porous border en-route Lagos waterways, find their ways to Port-Harcourt to join militants, who have been destabilising the economic well-being of the country. Their involvement in militancy has never been in isolation.
“Some of the people blowing off petroleum pipelines in the Niger- Delta Region are foreigners who have been promised barrels of crude as compensation for their efforts. Once they succeed in getting the crude oil, they ferry same through the sea to their country, where they become millionaires. These foreigners fuel wars and conflicts. They feed fat on confusion and in most cases, they smuggle in guns and explosives in exchange for crude oil”.
A serving Naval Officer on boat patrol in Port-Harcourt, who craved anonymity, told The Point that his team recently arrested five foreign crew members who confessed to taking people and crude oil across the sea.
“Their mode of operation is to send people on rubber dinghies rather than small fishing boats; what they [foreigners] usually do is to transfer people goods to larger boats in the middle of the sea. This is seen as a safer way to avoid detection,” he said.
Commenting on the alleged collaboration of foreigners in causing mayhem in the Niger Delta Region, Mr. Dandy Eze, an activist and Chief Executive Officer at Paths of Freedom, a Non-Governmental Organisation, said, “The security agents should rise up to the occasion .It is an affront to Nigeria as a nation. I want the Federal Government to set up a high-powered panel of investigation to determine the extent of the illegal activity.”
Eze also advocated an enhanced patrol of the country’s waterways to further constrict the illegal activities of smugglers, which he said had been responsible for annual loss of billions of Naira in revenue to the government.
“Obviously, the government loses over N100 billion to their nefarious activities, annually,” he said.
The spokesperson of the Nigeria Customs Service, Mr. Wale Adeniyi, told our correspondent that most of the routes were being patrolled and activities monitored.
“I cannot speak for the other security agencies; all I know is that my officers and men are on the ground to cripple smugglers’ activities. May be the heat is too much for them to bear on ground; they resorted to waterways. Unfortunately, the smugglers are clever by half. There is enhanced patrol of the waterways,” he said.
Also speaking on the issue, the Lagos Police Command imagemaker, Dolapo Badmos, a Superintendent of Police, said, “Let them take whatever route, the long arm of the law shall catch up with them; because, they can only run but have no hiding place. Our men, the Marine Police, are there to give them a hell”.