By Yusuf Boluwatife
Officers of the Kano/Jigawa Area Command of Nigeria Customs Service has successfully intercepted 185 cartons of unregistered and expired drugs worth over N200m.
The Command’s Comptroller, Sulaiman Umar, made the disclosure while handing over the items to officials of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in Kano on Thursday.
According to The PUNCH, he said the fake drugs, including ‘AK47,’ which would have been sold to unsuspecting members of the public, were seized during one of its operations in the area.
Comptroller Umar stated that the confiscation of the expired drugs was a result of the collaboration among all security agencies in the state.
“The patronage and consumption of unregistered/ hard drugs are of great concern due to its consequences on our teeming youths.
“Most of these criminal acts are carried out under the influence of these hard drugs and we will continue to fight at all times,” he said.
The comptroller said the area had also within the last three months seized smuggled items with a duty paid value of over N41m.
He said some of the seized items included 707 bags of 50 kilogrammes of foreign rice, 155 bales of second-hand clothes, 130 cartons of spaghetti and 231 cartons of milky creamer.
Other were six sacks of snuff made in Ghana, 29 cartons of couscous, 10 cartons of Tiger batteries and 30 packs of mosquito coils, among others.
Umar, however expressed concern that some Nigerians still indulged in smuggling despite the awareness of the threat smuggling poised to the nation’s security and economy.
The State NAFDAC Coordinator, Shaba Muhammad, commended the Customs for intercepting the drugs, saying they could have gone into circulation if they were not seized.
He warned drug dealers to desist from buying and selling unregistered and expired drugs as anyone caught would be arrested and face the full wrath of the law.
