The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has removed Hussein Ejibunu as the Controller, Federal Operations Unit Zone A, Ikeja, Lagos.

Replacing Ejigbunu, who was redeployed to the Customs Headquarters in Abuja, is Kola Oladeji, the former Coordinator, Borders Drill Sector 4, northwest axis.

Also quietly eased out was Ahmadu Shuaibu as Controller of Ogun 1 Area Command of the NCS; he was moved to head the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) in the Kaduna Area Command, and has been replaced with James Ojo.

READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: Nigeria Customs Smuggling Terrorist Motorcyles, Hard Drugs Into Northern Nigeria

According to FIJ’s sources in the NCS, the redeployment of Ejigbunu and Shuaibu were done to limit the spotlight on the service, following a series of ‘good morning’ tweets by ‘Fisayo Soyombo, founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), as a follow-up to his undercover investigation titled ‘Undercover As A Smuggler’. However, to protect the duo from embarrassment, their redeployment was announced as part of a wider shake-up in the service.

Ejigbunu first came under the spotlight on February 28, when FIJ reported that motorcycles used by bandits and insurgents to inflict terror on innocent civilians, as well as hard drugs, including tramadol, were among the goods being smuggled into northern Nigeria by the NCS, using Ibrahim Egungbohun Dende, better known as IBD Dende, as conduit.

On March 1, FIJ reported how IBD Dende, the biggest smuggler in southwestern Nigeria, threatened to kill an Assistant Superintendent of Customs (ASC) who stopped the smuggling of his goods from Benin Republic into Nigeria.

READ MORE: VIDEO: IBD Dende Threatens to Kill Customs Officer for Seizing His Smuggled Goods

In the first of the two videos attached to the story, a frantic and irate Dende can be heard repeatedly telling the Customs officer, whom he simply identified as Rotimi: “May it never be well with you.”

Despite wielding guns, all the Customs officers in the footage can be seen pacifying Dende, imploring him to calm down. Dende can also be seen bragging, “I have called Ejigbunu”, and ordering the receiver at the other end of the phone: “Call Wale, call Wale.”

The said ‘Wale’ is Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, a Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) and current Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC). Meanwhile, ‘Ejigbunu’ is Hussein Ejigbunu, the now former FOU Zone A conptroller.

Dende’s repeated boasts about calling Ejigbunu confirm FIJ’s exclusive on how the NCS streamlined the passage of smuggled goods in all six states that make up Zone A to Oja-Odan, Dende’s stronghold, alone, with Ejigbunu detailed to monitor the movements.

READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: Nigeria Customs Smuggling Terrorist Motorcyles, Hard Drugs Into Northern Nigeria

“You will find out that the teeth are sharper than the knife. I will show you that I am Dende,” Dende can be heard screaming in the video, while an apparently scared Rotimi can be heard wondering: “What have I done? He is threatening to kill me.”

As can be seen and heard in the second video, one of Dende’s grouses is that Customs officers were also smuggling rice while his own consignment was intercepted.

“I saw your boss’s trailer — four trailers that loaded rice — in Seme,” he can be heard saying. “What did you do about it? I will not accept it! I have told Ejigbunu I will not agree!”

THE ‘GOOD MORNING’ TWEETS

Good morning, @CustomsNG.

I know you are aware already; I am aware too, and Nigerians will also become aware, by virtue of this tweet: IBD Dende smuggled seven vehicles into the country overnight, just a few hours ago while the rest of us were asleep.

The vehicles came in via…

— 'Fisayo Soyombo (@fisayosoyombo) April 4, 2024

A number of Soyombo’s ‘good morning’ tweets — a series of early-morning notes drawing public attention to the rot in the customs service — indicted Ejigbunu. Notably, in one of the last acts of smuggling by IBD Dende under Ejigbunu’s watch, three 2024 Toyota landcruisers and four white coaster buses were smuggled into Lagos in the wee hours of April 4.

READ MORE: Undercover as a Smuggler

Good morning, @CustomsNG.

In case you did not know, the smuggling of three 2024 Toyota land cruisers and four white coaster buses into the country two nights ago by IBD Dende was executed with the express say-so of Hussein Ejigbunu, Comptroller, Federal Operations Unit Zone A —… pic.twitter.com/dzzGoNWyzX

— ‘Fisayo Soyombo (@fisayosoyombo) April 5, 2024

Similarly, apart from being the region through which IBD Dende smuggled most of his goods, including arms and ammunition, into the country, the Ogun 1 Area Command headed by Shuaibu was spotlighted for watching while its men broke into smugglers’ shops to cart away bags of rice that were mostly sold in the open-air market instead of ending up in the custody of Customs.

Notably, on April 2, Soyombo had tweeted about how Customs officers led by Patrick Odion, the OC Operations for Ajegunle-Ilaro Road, Ogun State, broke into a house in Oja-Odan, carting away 155 bags of rice, none of which he declared to Customs.

WATCH: DOCUMENTARY: Undercover as a Smuggler

Good morning, @CustomsNG. In your Easter message yesterday, accompanied by a picture of Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, the Comptroller General of Customs, you described smuggling as “a criminal act that is detrimental to our national development”.

If smugglers are criminals, what then… pic.twitter.com/WMAGfFAWhG

— 'Fisayo Soyombo (@fisayosoyombo) April 2, 2024

Earlier, he had tweeted about how a Chief Superintendent of Customs (CSC) Sabo, the OC Operation for border drills in Ogun State, was summoned to Abuja for selling off one half of smuggled rice he seized in Badagry while delivering the other half to the NCS, and how his patrol vehicles often escorted IBD Dende’s motorcycles out of Ilaro and Oja-Odan until their arrival in Oyo for onward movement to the North.

Good morning, @CustomsNG. I am aware that last week, you summoned Chief Superintendent of Customs (CSC) Sabo, the OC Operation for border drills in Ogun State, to Abuja where he is facing disciplinary action for selling off one half of smuggled rice he seized in Badagry while…

— ‘Fisayo Soyombo (@fisayosoyombo) April 1, 2024

Soyombo’s ‘good morning’ tweets so rankled the ranks of the NCS that they hatched an ultimately futile plan to raise over 15,000 tweets against him.

READ MORE: IBD Dende Sends IGP After FIJ

Good morning, @CustomsNG. I am aware of ongoing plans in your organisation to raise over 15,000 tweets against me. It is unfortunate that you consider most of my tweets “done in bad faith” and that I am “fronting for a group determined to pull the Service down by all means… pic.twitter.com/I6SIzqjliQ

— 'Fisayo Soyombo (@fisayosoyombo) March 25, 2024

When he finally suspended the one-man social-media campaign against Customs-aided smuggling and sabotage of national security and economy, he put up a one-stop compilation of all he and FIJ had written on Customs in six weeks.

I promised a one-stop compilation of everything @fijnigeria and I wrote on Customs in six weeks.

From the trailer of ‘Undercover As a Smuggler’, to my final-day tweets on the smuggled SUVs, this thread documents almost everything I said about Customs, smuggling and gun-running👇

— 'Fisayo Soyombo (@fisayosoyombo) April 11, 2024

The ‘good morning’ tweets were an offshoot of FIJ’s undercover investigation unveiling, among other things, how smuggling is aided by Customs bosses who take bribes from smugglers and then betray patrol teams by updating smugglers on their colleagues’ itinerary.

Back on Tuesday, February 20, FIJ had released the trailer of the investigation — ‘Undercover as a Smuggler’ — by Soyombo, and followed it up with a multimedia story on Wednesday February 21 and a 16-minute documentary on Thursday February 22.