Lawan: We can’t afford smuggling of petrol anymore

Senate President Ahmad Lawan has urged security agencies to tighten border security to checkmate smuggling of petroleum products out of Nigeria.

He said the country could no longer afford the smuggling of petroleum products out of the country owing to the huge cost on the government’s resources. 

Lawan spoke Tuesday when he met with heads of security and paramilitary agencies at the National Assembly, Abuja. 

He said: “Our situation is such that we cannot afford anymore to allow this smuggling business to continue because the cost is very huge and debilitating to our people.

“The figures of what we consume in the country continue to fluctuate. At one point it was almost 100 million litres per day and surely this is difficult to believe that we consume almost 100 million litres per day within our borders. Certainly, a good percentage of it goes out.”

He stressed the need for deployment of drones and other technologies at the borders to curb smuggling.

The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Hameed Ali, said absence of governance at the border communities made curbing smuggling difficult.