GENTLEMAN-OFFICER, COMPT GAMBO ALIYU:
AT THE MENTION OF HIS NAME, DIE-HARD SMUGGLERS BOW
By Timothy Paul Okorocha
To economic saboteurs in the south west region, they have never taken his cool composure for granted. His kind of ‘roforofo dance’ with smugglers look deceitful, as his mien is a strategy to get you into his net.
Having gone round sensitive units and commands in the Customs Service in nearly three decades of patriotic stewardship, Compt Gambo remains one of the best anti-smuggling experts the service today boasts of.
He has not failed in any responsibility, his humility is second to none, his loyalty to the No 1 is total.
These are the characteristics of a man whose service is still potent in turning around the customs.
In the past six months of this year, die-hard smugglers operating in the South west region of the country have reclined into their cocoons to avoid being arrested alongside their illicit items. This development is courtesy of the shrewd approach to anti-smuggling activities of the Nigeria Customs Service’s (NCS) Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone A, Ikeja Lagos, under the able leadership of the gentleman Area Controller (CAC) of the Command, Comptroller Gambo Aliyu.
Comptroller Aliyu has remained the nemesis of all the smugglers operating in the said region since late 2025 when the Customs management posted him to lead the Command in the volatile region infested with unrelenting economic saboteurs. Upon his arrival in the Command, he had vowed to crush the activities of smugglers if they failed to turn over a new leaf.
Perhaps, due to the gentle looks on his countenance, not many of the illicit traders had taken him serious until the operatives of the FOU Zone A began to operate in unusual ways that stunned the agents of darkness. Aliyu’s maiden media briefing last December told different story about his unusual sagacity in combating smuggling.
Not completely deterred in December 2025, many die-hard smugglers had estimated the tempo in cracking down smuggling by Comptroller Aliyu’s FOU would abate in 2026. They were actually wrong. For, in the first month of the present year, 2026, South west region-based smugglers began to develop a faint heart; their morale to operate began to wane with clear evidence. Their retreat became inevitable when Aliyu reeled out the outcome of the Command’s anti-smuggling activities for January this year.
During the FOUs first media briefing of 2026 held last February, the arrest of an equivalent of 12 trailer loads of foreign parboiled rice of 50kg bags had scared die-hard smugglers to their marrow, an indication that the tough-talking Comptroller Aliyu was all-out to crush smuggling activities in the entire South west. Alongside the rice was another striking seizure of 1,431 kilograms of synthetic cannabis, also referred to as the Ghanaian Loud, among other seizures. Their cumulative Duty Paid Value (DPV) amounted to about N3.32 billion.
The May 2026 media briefing of Comptroller Aliyu as the CAC of FOU Zone A, told a different story about the ruthless approach to anti-smuggling operations being deployed by the Command. Aliyu had hinted during the event that within a period of just eight months, two of his tactics resulted in the thwarting of 473 smuggling attempts made by smugglers in the zone. According to the CAC, seizures were also made during the period which DPV amounted to N5.5 billion. Some of the items forcefully taken from the economic saboteurs included 1,540kg of cocaine valued at N2.35 billion, 3,340 parcels of cannabis sativa, 8,794 bags of 50kg foreign parboiled rice which were an equivalent of 15 trailer loads of rice, and 22 used vehicles.
Other seizures of the period were 328 bales of used clothes, 1,188 kegs of vegetable oil, 31,705 litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), 531 cartons of poultry products, 485 pieces of used tyres, 69 cartons of foreign spaghetti, 24 bags of foreign sugar and four (4) cylinders of high-grade mercury concealed in the bottom compartment of a Toyota Avensis car. The mercury was intercepted at the Gbaji outpost along the Seme Border-Lagos Expressway. Aliyu disclosed that the mercury can be used to prepare dangerous explosives if it found its way to the hands of bandits and terrorists.
According to him, on April 30, 2026, also at the Gbaji axis along the Lagos-Abidjan Corridor, FOU operatives acting on credible intelligence intercepted a Toyota Highlander vehicle driven by a 71-year old man identified as Oni Iredia Martins in which was concealed six (6) parcels of cocaine which weighed 6.35kg.
Comptroller Aliyu identified two major operational tactics he deployed to unsettle smugglers. Number one, according to Aliyu, “Our analysis of recent trends indicates that traffickers are devising different methods to perpetrate illicit trade. This necessitated the integration of Human Intelligence and Open Source Intelligence Operations”.
The second tactic, Aliyu identified, is the strengthening of ties with key regulatory agencies, including the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), adding that, “Interagency collaboration remains central to our operations at the Unit. We have a robust relationship with all our strategic stakeholders, this is with a view to upscale our efforts to secure the border corridors “.