The Nigeria Customs Service intercepted a Mitsubishi Canter truck with the registration number SUL-51-ZY loaded with a considerable quantity of railway locomotive parts along Niger State’s Minna-Bida Highway.
The articles were thought to belong to the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC).
Busayo Kadejo, the Comptroller in Charge of the Niger/Kogi Area Command, said this in Minna on Friday when he handed over the confiscated items to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) Niger State command.
Kadejo disclosed that the interception of the truck was carried out by the customs surveillance patrol team along the Minna-Bida Highway.
Narrating the encounter of the patrol team with the suspected vandals, the comptroller said the driver and other occupants of the truck, sensing imminent danger when flagged down and fearing possible arrest, “took to their heels and abandoned the vehicle”.
He noted that the vehicle was conveying vandalised railway locomotive parts, believed to be the property of the NRC, adding that it was not only criminal but an act of economic sabotage.
According to him, having sought and obtained necessary approval from the Comptroller General of Customs, the command decided to hand over the intercepted vehicle with railway locomotive parts to its sister agency, NSCDC, for further action.
The comptroller maintained that handover of the seized vehicles to the NSCDC was done in the spirit of inter-agency collaboration in the fight against criminal and criminalities in our society.
He commended the officers and men of the surveillance patrol team who intercepted the truck, noting the damage and loss that the NRC might have incurred by the action of these callous vandals and economic saboteurs.