Deputy Comptroller MA Madugu, Head of Customs Scanning Unit at the Apapa Area 1 Command, Lagos, commits to the ease of doing business, seamless cargo clearing procedure, securing the nation against harmful and outlawed imports, as well as blocking revenue leakage through his in-depth knowledge of the deployment of scanners for examination in the Premier Port
By Innocent Chukwu
He seldom gets noticed, because his job entails accurate assessment and analysis which keeps him off the public eye. However, Deputy Comptroller UA Madugu, a new-generation officer of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), occupies a strategic position in the security and economy of Nigeria. DC Madugu’s line of duty in the NCS is a specialized one, which requires precision, accuracy, intelligence and expertise.
He is currently the Head, commonly referred to as the Officer-in-Charge (OC), of the Customs Scanning Unit at the Premier Port, Apapa, Lagos. The Scanning Unit has become a major turning point in trade facilitation and security of the country, taking over the physical examination of cargoes in the ports. The technology identifies harmful and dangerous imports that may not have been easy to detect under the physical examination of imports.
It also helps in fast tracking cargo clearing processes in the ports through fast and efficient examination of cargoes devoid of human intervention or manipulation. Thus, clearing processes are made easier with the right declaration by the business community.
Scanning containers and understanding the language of the scanner is a specialized job. DC Madugu has over the years undergone series of training which qualified him to occupy the office. The Apapa Premier Port boasts of the biggest concentration of scanning machines due to the existence of the largest container terminal -the AP Moller Container Terminal – in the West African subregion.
Madugu’s brief includes but not limited to ensuring 100 percent compliance to Customs rules for clearing cargoes by the trading community, enforcement of accurate declaration of contents of containers, ensuring security of the country by detection of smuggled, dangerous items, fast-track cargo clearing that decongests the Premier Port, as well as effecting more revenue collection for the government.
DC Madugu’s job is equally sensitive, it is not for undisciplined, unpatriotic operatives because any careless approach to the job will spell doom for the nation. But Madugu is focused, his knowledge and expertise do not get into his psyche as he ostensibly conducts himself with humility and a sense purpose and patriotism.
By dint of hard work, Madugu is helping the country to combat smuggling, influx of dangerous items such as arms and ammunition and hard drugs, as well as port decongestion. Numerous seizures of narcotics and other dangerous imports in the Premier Port were a result of Madugu’s ability to read and interpret the language of the scanning machines, a specialized skill that is not available to other operatives.
The Customs scanning guru in the Premier Port, Lagos, DC Madugu once said that the scanning technology was configured to capture scanned images of declared containers accurately, transmit the data correctly, analyse the process, and approve the release of containers without delay.
According to Madugu, the latest scanning technology in the Premier Port, Apapa, Lagos, is part of Customs automation processes which are in line with global best practices, it functions to reduce cargo dwell time and fast track the system to enhance trade facilitation. With the scanning technology, more containers are cleared out of the port than when the physical examination alone was deployed.
Giving insight into his activities as the number one scanning expert in the country during the test-run of the newly-installed scanners at the Apapa Premier Port in November last year, DC Madugu had volunteered, “What we’re going to have is paperless operation. Every image scanned is going to be matched with declaration.
“Now, you don’t have agents coming to submit documents physically. The moment you capture and your containers are scanned, we match them together and analysis is done, and you leave on a timely manner, except for those who have any form of discrepancies that require further check. That’s the only time you can experience delay”.
