I Saw Your Bosses Smuggling Rice Too — Alleged Kingpin, Ibrahim Dende Threatens Nigerian Customs Officer For Seizing His Goods

One Ibrahim Egungbohun Dende, an alleged smuggling kingpin, has reportedly threatened to kill an Assistant Superintendent of Customs (ASC) who stopped the smuggling of his goods from Benin Republic into Nigeria.

FIJ reports that the said Dende is one of the alleged biggest smuggling chiefs in southwestern Nigeria, adding that the event happened in January, one month before the release of its undercover investigation which unveiled, 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.

Meanwhile, Dende has denied any involvement in smuggling.

In a rebuttal, IBD Dende petitioned Kayode Egbetokun, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), claiming that FIJ’s report amounted to “character assassination with calculated view to achieve damaging effects against IBD Dende and his businesses within and outside Nigeria."

However, a video FIJ obtained shows Dende threatening a Customs official who intercepted his vehicles containing smuggled rice from entering Nigeria.

In the first of the videos, 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 could be seen pacifying Dende, imploring him to calm down.

“All the Customs officers with guns you see in those videos are his boys,” one source told outlet.

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.”

FIJ can confirm that 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, Comptroller, Federal Operations Unit Zone A.

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 as the Comptroller, Federal Operations Unit Zone A, detailed to monitor the movements.

“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!”