Using “The Good Office” to villify “Targets”, The Half – Truths of Fisayo Soyombo 

“Half a truth is often a great lie.” – Benjamin Franklin.

No doubt that Fisayo Soyombo has carved a niche for himself as an investigative journalist of repute, earning him the “good office” that attracts believability among his heterogeneous followers, but his continuous desecration of the “good office” with dubious claims and untruths has eaten deep into his integrity as a journalist.

Let’s start with the account of Fisayo Soyombo’s acclaimed undercover journey to Adja-Quere as he narrated in his first report to have personally smuggled one hundred bags of foreign parboiled rice into Nigeria from the Republic of Benin, that he bought the rice “at a Beninese market in Adja-Ouere, housing hordes of stalls filled to the brim with ready – for – smuggling rice. Many of the stores are locked, only specifically opened when a smuggler shows up to move goods. Inside the one patronised by Alaba, I see tens of thousands of rice bags delicately stacked on one another in multiples of twenties”. Soyombo lied in totality!

The fact is that there are only two locked-up shops in the whole of Adja-Quere, RB where foreign parboiled rice can be bought, in retail! In fact, one wonders whether Soyombo knows where Adja-Quere is located.

RazorTimes can report authoritatively that, going by his claims in the write up churned out for public consumption, he (Fisayo Soyombo) has never been to the village; let him prove this wrong with verifiable evidence please.

Then, if the basis of the serial work of Fisayo Soyombo on exposing the smuggling activities and actors operating along Oja-Odan/Obelle Border area is the reported undercover trip that is buried in half truths, then it is entirely baseless!

One can conclude that he lied during the Channels TV interview and other platforms he used to spread the defamation of the Nigeria Customs Service and especially Alhaji Ibrahim Dende Egungbohun (IBD), because no sane business minded person from Nigeria, enroute Oja-Odan, Ohunbe-Obelle will set out on a voyage to buy one hundred bags of rice at Adja-Quere – a 2.8km distance, off Pobe/Porto Novo/Cotonou expressway. It’s illogical!

Rice, being sold in retail in Adja-Quere is costlier due to the transportation logistics from the mainstream markets; Ohunbe, Obelle, Pobe, Oando & Grand Marche in Porto Novo and Tokpa in Cotonou and Soyombo should do well to ask those who concocted the story for him, to provide further details to Nigerians, on the location of his supplier, apparently, not in Adja-Quere; from whom he bought the 100 bags of rice as, except he is probably the only superhero Nigerian smuggler who had his supplier in the agrarian town of Adja-Quere.

If Fisayo is not acting the script or telling the tales fabricated by “others” for malicious reasons, he’s hereby challenged to provide evidence that he truly participated in the smuggling and purchased one hundred bags of foreign parboiled rice from Adja-Quere and moved it to Oja-Odan without any interference by Customs officers.

Here are the fundamentals of borderline activities which Fisayo ought to have known, before embarking on the serial condemnation of the Nigerian Customs Service and one of their leading  licensed Agent, Alhaji Ibrahim Dende Egungbohun popularly referred to as IBD Dende.

Smuggling, according to Karras, is a transnational phenomena that is “ubiquitous, covert and ultimately unstoppable”. The reality is that its eradication is practically impossible, the very reason the government recruits patriotic citizens to man the borderlines so as to reduce it to the barest minimum.

Informal Trading; Informal Traders are the business men and women and in most cases indigent of the border communities, usually involved in “smuggling”, hence, “in order to maintain any sort of legitimacy, governments have had to tolerate a certain level of this “illicit behavior”.

The fact is that the informal traders operate at minimal level and can be seen around land borders across the globe and for the Nigerian Customs to maintain the delicate balance between facilitating legitimate trade flows while concurrently deterring those that were illicit remained a complex operational task.

A cynical mind would realize that the challenge is massive; “the scale of complexity of physical transportation geography in border management, adaptive capabilities of concealment, evasion, structural and operational flexibility by professional smugglers, and institutional coordination problems which may arise in customs and border control management”.

The reality is that “illicit trade is a complex phenomenon that requires a deeper understanding and multi-faceted solution-based approach, needing the contribution of all stakeholders.

Undoubtedly, there are also daredevil smugglers who in most cases were fellow Nigerians from across the six regions of the country, who coincidentally must have also “signed” a treaty with “immortality” apologies to Soyombo himself, as efforts to stop them often resulted in casualties on the part of the gallant officers. Notwithstanding, officers of Nigerian Customs would risk their lives to intercept contrabands in possession of the deadly smugglers and at times make arrests to meet up with the target given to them by the federal government.

Often, smugglers mobilized themselves against the officers to the extent that checkpoints were burnt, officers were maimed and killed. Relics abound along Papalanto/Obelle road and across all land borders in Nigeria. For example, during the days of the incumbent National PRO AA Maiwada in Ogun I Customs Command, officers were ambushed at Asero, Abeokuta, and macheted to death. Journalists witnessed firsthand the countenance of the grieving officers led by the PRO during the burial at the Muslim Cemetery, Lafenwa, Abeokuta, Ogun State. An officer was shot and taken away by smugglers along Dalemo area of Ota, Ogun State. Two officers were killed in Idogo/Ipaja area, the list is endless. To view the enumerated cases as a tea party or dismiss the hazards because one could detect some bad eggs in the Service would be very callous and uncharitable!

Would the fallen officers and men of the Nigerian Customs have been killed so gruesomely if the culture of collecting bribes and allowing smugglers to move contraband into the country brazenly had been institutionalized as alleged by Soyombo? Crucifying the entire System amounted to cruelty on those who chose to pay the supreme price in the bid to protect the territorial integrity of our dear country, Nigeria.

Diabolism: An investigative journalist of Soyombo’s status must be aware that the system also believes in diabolism. Reports abound of how smugglers invoke evil spirits to harm officers, no doubt; there were uncountable incidents when smugglers had, through diabolic means forced officers on duty to fall asleep and wake up after contrabands had been moved out of the officers’ sights. Some have in their possession diabolic rings/items that can change the identity of the contrabands during inspection and return such to the original content after leaving the checkpoints. Some who tend to be “stubborn” among the officers had been inflicted with terrible illnesses, some were commanded to become insane while some officers paid the ultimate price. A middle aged female smuggler at Ìta-Wáyà checkpoint along Ilaro/Oja-Odan road reportedly commanded an officer who insisted on intercepting her contraband to start sweeping the floor! Upon all pleadings, she refused to neutralize the affliction. Why all the risks, one may wonder? It’s because the officers resolved to live up to their oath of allegiance to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Borderline Business Stakeholders: The role of this category of stakeholders in connection with transnational trade can not be over emphasized, for without them, there may not be revenue generation, without them the Nigerian Customs may need the thirteenth month to meet up with FG’s annual target which in most cases is met within the first six months of any fiscal year. They are the facilitators (intermediary) in the process of trade facilitation and generation of IGR by the Customs and the Federal Government. They are also known as Customs Licensed Agent or Clearing and Forwarders.

Alhaji Ibrahim Dende Egungbohun popularly referred to as IBD Dende is one of the leading stakeholders that act as the bridge between importers and the Nigerian Customs. They facilitate the payment of duty accordingly and assist the government in many ways.

Fisayo Soyombo’s position that has not seen anything good in the Nigerian Customs and serially attacking their Licensed Agent, Alhaji Ibrahim Dende Egungbohun has portrayed him as a reporter cum character assassin who is bent on destroying the remaining fabrics that hold Nigeria as a country.

He has projected himself as one being used as a distraction to the federal government by “those” bankrolling him, to as well, dent the good reputation of law abiding Customs officers and patriotic Nigerians like Alhaji Ibrahim Dende Egungbohun.

By way of conclusion, Soyombo seems to be the only investigative journalist who makes allegations and thereafter begins to look for evidence to support his lies!

It’s on record that Soyombo alleged that Customs officers are themselves the smuggler of untouchable and unsearchable consignments. He claimed that the consignments contained motorcycles and tramadol meant for terrorists. Recently, he also alleged that guns and bullets were wrapped like turkey for movement to the East. One can only expect him to proof the array of contradictions. Apart from presenting pictures and video contents that are taking out of context to deliberately cause disinformation among unsuspecting people, who still value the past believability attached to the “good office” of Fisayo Soyombo, his reports can easily be categorised as hatched job.

The many contradictions in the half – truths will be x – rayed by RazorTimes in the next piece, watch out!