(NCS Officials. Photo by Vanguard News)
The Nigeria Customs Service turned over 399 r!fles and related ordnance to the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons on Monday for investigation and legal proceedings.
At the handover at Tin-Can Island Port in Lagos, the Comptroller-General of Customs flagged deepening concerns about illicit small @rms flowing into Nigeria, particularly as the country prepares for electoral cycles.
The Comptroller-General credited the interception to the agency’s automated surveillance infrastructure, noting that the seized container was identified not through chance discovery but through the Trade Modernisation Project system, which consolidates clearance protocols, algorithmic threat assessment, shipment visibility and non-invasive screening into one framework.
He stressed that this technological investment was not purely fiscal but strategic customs agencies cannot physically inspect every arriving container, and the system’s value lies in identifying high-risk shipments for examination.
The weapons were found disassembled and concealed in component form aboard a vessel that arrived on 8 July.
Two suspects were arrested, with one detained while attempting to recover the shipment from a bonded facility.
Both remain in court custody pending arraignment scheduled for 25 August.
The Comptroller-General underscored the severity of the threat, linking illicit we@pon proliferation to ongoing security crises including t£rrorism, b@ndits, kidn@pping and organised criminal activity, and cautioned that such quantities falling into unauthorised hands during electoral periods could destabilise democratic processes and community safety.
He stressed that interception represents only one link in a chain that must hold intact detection, apprehension, prosecution and custody transfer to the appropriate authority.
Officers who facilitate such trafficking, he warned, would receive no protection from the Service.
