Oja-Oba Market Raid: Customs Officers Gave Preferential Treatment To Katsina Traders — Residents

Traders and Residents of Oyo State have called on the National Assembly to put a stop to the alleged preferential treatment given to Katsina traders whose goods were allegedly returned after they were initially carted away by men of the Nigerian Customs Service during a recent raid.

According to Oyo Affairs, this is coming as a result of the seeming reluctance and failure of the men of Nigerian Customs Service, (NCS) to return the bags of rice and other valuable goods carted away during the raid despite the Senate's instruction that all the goods seized from the traders be returned to them.

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In an interview with the press, one Zacchaeus Taiwo stated that while Katsina traders’ goods were returned to the owners after they had been allegedly carted away by men of NCS, there is no need for them to continue withholding the goods seized in Ibadan after the senators’ intervention had called for the immediate return of the goods to the traders

Taiwo stressed that men of NCS should not give preferential treatment to only Katsina traders, adding that the continued seizure of Ibadan traders’ goods amounts to injustice and unfairness.

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Another Ibadan man, Adewale Qassim said that the action taken by the customs officers to return the goods belonging to Katsina traders justifies the fact that they only cared for the traders coming from the state at the expense of the ones in Ibadan, Oyo State.

Qassim stressed that the officer who led the Katsina shops’ raid had been dismissed, while the same decision has not been taken against the ones who led a similar raid on Ibadan markets.

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He said that his thought was also in line with what others are saying that “men of NCS only returned the Katsina Traders’ goods because they are from President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state”.

A respondent who pleaded to speak on a condition of anonymity for the sake of retribution disclosed that men of NCS who carried out the dastardly and illegal activities should be brought before the temple of justice.

The respondent maintained that the action taken by them could make people resort to self-help and self-defense if governments fail to do the needful.

He, however, enjoined the Senate President and distinguished senators to call the customs officers to order and avoid carrying out acts which is an aberration of the act that established and sustains the agency.

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