Protest in Sango as Customs seizes 1,870 bags of rice

The protesters...yesterday.

Business was paralysed yesterday in Sango Ota, Ogun State, following a protest by traders after the raid of the popular Sango Garage market by Customs operatives.

Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) men seized 1,870 bags of rice, which they claimed were smuggled.

The protesters blocked the road leading to Sango, Ota and Ojuore from Old Tollgate. Many commuters were stranded.

The traders said they would not vacate the road, until their wares were returned.

But soldiers, policemen, naval  and other security operatives restored normalcy to the area.

The rice, it was learnt, were seized by operatives of the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone ‘A’ Ikeja, following a tip-off.

The seized items, it was gathered, were allegedly smuggled into the country by some scrupulous importers who sold them to the traders.

The traders’ leader, Alhaja Wemimo Salako, alleged that the bags of rice were removed by Customs from their warehouse inside the market.

Mrs. Salako said the Customs officers came in the middle of the night and broke into their shops, alleging they stole some money.

“They came in the middle of the night, broke into our shops and left with 15 trucks of rice and five Hilux truck load of rice.

“They broke our safe, stole our money and four of our members have landed in the hospital because of the shock,” she said.

One of the protesters, Mrs Ronke Adejare accused the Customs of dereliction of duty.

“Let us accept that the bags of rice were smuggled but where were these Customs officers when the items were being smuggled into the country?”

Another trader, Mrs. Kudirat Taiwo, said she lost 250 bags of rice and 190 gallons of (25kg) vegetable oil.

“N550,000, which was the proceeds of sale from Tuesday, was taken away by the Customs officials. I want my money back,” she said.

Mrs. Adebisi Fasinu said 170 (25 kg) Kings vegetable oil; 17 kegs of 10 litres and 44 (5 litres) kegs were seized.

The Chairman, Ado/Odo Ota Local Government, Oladele Adeniji, said the matter would be solved by the appropriate authority.

But Customs spokesman Jerry Attah said: “Early yesterday morning, our operatives went to Sango motor park warehouse.

“Unspecified bags of rice were ferried to the front of the warehouse with motorcycles.

“The motorcycles were moving in a convoy. Any attempt to stop them could lead to death and we don’t want any casualty because we are trailing rice.

  “So, as professionals our operatives monitored them. When they were done, our operatives swooped and seized them. We didn’t seize them all.

“After physical examination, we counted 1,870 bags of 50kg of different brands of foreign parboiled rice, and 43 kegs 25 litres of foreign vegetable oil.

  “As at when they left there, there was no crossfire, there was no casualty. It was a peaceful operation,” he said.

 On the stolen money, Attah said: “Miscreants always take advantage of such scenario, it is possible that some people might have used the opportunity to break into the shops and steal their money. For us, no shop was broken or invaded,”

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Europa League!! Saint-Etienne 0-1 Manchester United (RESULT)

Manchester United eased into the last 16 of the Europa League with victory at Saint-Etienne but goalscorer Henrikh Mkhitaryan could be out of Sunday’s EFL Cup final after limping off.

Leading 3-0 from the first leg thanks to a Zlatan Ibrahimovic hat-trick, United started sharply in front of a noisy home support at a stadium often referred to as ‘The Cauldron’, with Mkhitaryan flicking in Juan Mata’s cross early on to leave the hosts needing five goals.

The Armenian departed shortly after and clutched his hamstring as he entered the tunnel, an injury which could impact on manager Jose Mourinho’s team selection for Sunday’s Wembley meeting with Southampton.

And though United had defender Eric Bailly sent off for two bookable offences in the second-half, they rarely looked under pressure in securing a place in Friday’s last-16 draw.

Short of a Loic Perrin header, which was easily held by Sergio Romero in the first-half, United – sporting six changes – were comfortable throughout, with Marcus Rashford poking wide when well placed in the second period.

The first leg of their next game in the competition will arrive days before an FA Cup tie at Chelsea but with just one defeat in 25 matches, Mourinho continues to shuffle his pack efficiently and the challenge for three cup successes remains in tact.

Who was your man of match?

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Mkhitaryan likely to miss EFL Cup final this weekend

Manchester United midfielder, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, could miss this weekend’s EFL Cup final against Southampton, after limping off with a suspected leg injury in their 1-0 win at St Etienne on Wednesday.

The Armenia international gave United the lead with a superb finish in the 17th minute, but was withdrawn eight minutes later, with the player holding the back of his right leg.

He was replaced by Marcus Rashford.

United won the round-of-32 tie 4-0 on aggregate

Mkhitaryan, who joined the club last summer from Borussia Dortmund, has scored five goals and provided five assists in 23 matches this season

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JAMB fixes UTME for May, scraps scratchcard

Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar Prof. Ishaq Oloyede yesterday said the much-awaited Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) will hold in May as part of steps to check malpractices.

He also said the agency had handed over 10 officials to the police for investigation in connection with fraud associated with sales of scratch cards.

Prof. Oloyede said JAMB had eliminated the use of scratch cards because UTME candidates were being extorted.

He said: “For the 2017 UTME, we have taken a decision to commence the sale of the form soon. Within the next two weeks, we will be out. The reason for this is that we are making all arrangements that ought to be made. We have changed the process of payment, no more scratch card selling. We need to put the right architecture in place and we have put this in place.

“The examination will be coming up later than usual. This is to make sure we take into consideration the interest of the students. We are going to conduct the UTME in May. It will not clash with any SSCE examinations

“I did not sit here or my management did not fix the date. We sat down with all examination bodies with their timetables and we agreed to create this window.”

He said the new timing of the UTME was to check any form of malpractice, especially upgrading of results.

He said:  “Normally, we conduct our examinations around March and the results will be ready within two to three days. But when do we need the results? It is always between July and August. This gives room for all forms of suspicion. If you go on the net, you will see people claiming that they could help candidates to upgrade their results because the results are lying fallow between March and July.

“Now we want to shorten the period in such a way that the time between the examination and when the results will be used will be very short. There will be no opportunity for anybody to even dream of upgrading results.

“We are also using that opportunity to communicate with other Examination bodies like WAEC, NECO and NABTEB to ensure that we do not make our examinations mutually exclusive. Somebody is taking WAEC examinations, he wants to take JAMB but in some cases due to clash of timetable, he wants to sacrifice one for the other.

“So, we have harmonized in such a way that the period we are going to use for our examination, all other examination bodies will not have examinations during the period.

Asked how many candidates will sit for UTME this year, the Registrar said the agency is expecting about 1.7million.

“That figure (1.7m candidates) was last year’s figure and we do not expect less this year. We expect about 1.5million candidates for UTME and about 200,000 and 300,000 candidates for Direct Entry. That was how we arrived at the figure and that is the figure we are also expecting, “he said.

“I or the management will not promise a hitch-free examination because when you are doing the type of re-engineering we are doing, you cannot say that there will be no hitches. But we believe that we are on top of it and whatever problem arises, we will solve it.

“Everybody will however have fair treatment and everybody will be well-treated. This is what I can assure Nigerians.

Prof. Oloyede confirmed that 10 officials of JAMB were handed over to the Police over scratch cards-related fraud.

Oloyede went on: “What we have done is to fine tune what is being done to make our services better for the public. We have taken some very painful decisions like elimination of scratch cards. We know that some people make their living from sale of scratch cards but that is not the type of living we want to encourage because it is extortion.

“They buy the cards from our staff and they sell at exorbitant price to the users. The scratch card has a particular amount of N1, 000 or N2, 500 but they up selling the cards for four to five times the price. Apart from that, scratch card has left to massive corruption in the system.

“As I’m talking to you now, 10 members of our staff are with the police. We have handed over to the police for one corrupt practice or the other related to scratch cards.”

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