The 36 state governors have expressed concern over the poor quality of rice being consumed by Nigerians and called on the Nigeria Customs Service to take measures to affect the government’s ban on imported rice.
This is part of the communiqué from their last meeting, which took place in the banquet hall of the Aso Rock Vila in Abuja.
The governors said that huge load of rice still finding its way into the market was the handiwork of shady importers using the liberal import license regime of the preceding administration, which also granted waivers to election financiers at the time.
They contend that while some bulk of the consignment was stale, others were either rejected in other countries or had overstayed in various warehouses before they found their way into Nigeria through the activities of some unscrupulous elements.
They expressed concern that Nigerians were either falling sick or losing their lives to the consumption of these substandard produce even though some of the states of the country have commenced elaborate efforts to produce rice in commercial quantity with a view to halting the nation’s over-reliance on staples that can be produced locally.
Most governors of the states that have already embraced the back to land mantra of this administration frowned at the situation where Nigerians snubbed the locally produced commodity in preference for foreign ones which were most of the time, stale, contaminated or even fake.
In their brief to the Governors’ Forum, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, represented by the Deputy Comptroller General Dangaladima Aminu, said that although there is an upsurge in the smuggling of rice through the nations land borders, there has been no alteration to the prohibition on the importation of rice through Nigeria’s land borders.
Dangaladima said that rice was usually smuggled into the country through unauthorized border routes by smugglers with the aid of border communities.
He said, “Your excellences, it may interest you to note that a motorcycle can make up to 30 trips with six 50kg bags of rice per night depending on the distance and when the border communities are not smuggling the produce themselves, they are aiding or providing cover for smugglers.”
Disclosing that the rice merchants had recorded huge losses as a result of seizures by the customs, ranging from 12000 metric tons seized in 2014 to 4503 in 2015 and 14000 in 2016 , Dangaladima said the Customs “takes the issue of smuggling of rice seriously, having identified the danger posed by it to the economic well-being and health hazards it constitutes to the Nigerian people.”
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