aided the importations of weapons for Boko
Haram.
The Military Joint Task Force patrolling the streets
in search of Boko Haram extremists
According to both security and non-military
sources, soldiers have arrested a serving senior
official of the Nigeria Customs Service in
Maiduguri, the Borno State capital for allegedly
assisting Boko Haram insurgents to import arms
into the country.
The officer, who is a native of one of the states in
the volatile Northeast Nigeria, found himself in
trouble when soldiers intercepted a vehicle cleared
to enter the country through a border post under
his command.
Some military sources who confirmed the incident
to reporters in Maiduguri said the Customs officer
was exposed when the driver of the truck carrying
the illegal arms mentioned his name "as the Oga
that allowed him to enter the country with the
arms."
The sources said the customs officer was also
linked with several arms importation, an act that
probably made him very rich, to buy his numerous
landed property and posh cars.
The news of the incident, which had been
downplayed by the security agencies in Maiduguri,
however, became the talk of the town after it broke
open this week.
A Borno civil servant told Journalists at the
Government House, Maiduguri, that government
officials know about the arrest of the officer.
"It is no longer a hidden news that he was arrested
in connection with helping Boko Haram to bring in
arms.
A security source also told me that the senior
officer manned the border post each time the truck
conveying arms was about coming into Maiduguri.
He would simply tell his boys to let it pass that it
has been cleared from above," said the civil servant
who did not want his name published for security
reasons.
Sources also said several military uniforms and
guns were also recovered from the Maiduguri home
of the arrested customs officer after a team of
soldiers visited the building last week.
Journalists could not get across to the spokesmen
of the various security outfits in Maiduguri,
including the JTF spokesman, Sagir Musa, due to
the grounding of telecommunication network
which has lasted for almost two weeks since the
emergency rule declaration.
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