Punch Newspapers Sections Published 20 May 2021 ON the flimsy pretext of curbing smuggling activities, officers of the Nigeria Customs Service are killing Nigerians with reckless abandon. In a fresh incident, Customs officers brutally shot some people dead during the 2021 Sallah festivities in Oyo State. Disconcertingly, there has been a noticeable escalation in killings by Customs officers since Hameed Ali’s assumption of office as the NCS Comptroller-General in 2015. Under Ali, the NCS is victimising Nigerians. Iseyin, the fourth largest town in Oyo State, is the latest to bear the brunt of bloodletting by Customs personnel. As the Islamic faithful celebrated the end of Ramadan, some NCS officers stormed the town in pursuit of suspected rice smugglers. Claiming that the smugglers mobilised against them, they opened fire indiscriminately on the crowd. At the end of the shootings, they had killed five persons. This is completely unjustifiable.