By Hyacinth Chinweuba
The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, has raised concern that contaminated rice may be rapidly in circulation in the country.
The Oyo-Osun command of the Service said contaminated repackaged bags of rice is spreading around the country from Benin Republic.
The Customs Area Controller of the Command, Udo-Aka Emmanuel, alleged that rice smugglers are repackaging contaminated rice from the Republic of Benin with the aim of supplying them to the Nigerian market.
Emmanuel raised the issue while speaking with journalists after seizing a truck and two buses with contaminated rice that were impounded along Iseyin-Oyo Road.
He said the seized bags of rice had passed their shelf lives, having been stored in various warehouses at the Republic of Benin for so long after the owners found it difficult to smuggle them to Nigeria.
The Area Controller pointed out that to make the rice attractive to buyers, the bags were changed to reflect new expiry dates.
The Customs boss noted that 853 bags of rice were found in the three vehicles, adding that apart from the rice, 395 units of 25 litres of imported vegetable oil were also seized from the smugglers at different locations.
According to him, the duty paid value on the rice is N14.6 million while that of the vegetable oil is more than N3 million.
Emmanuel explained that the seized bags of rice were stored in warehouses at the Republic of Benin without proper pest control.
“These seized bags of rice have been stored in warehouses at the Republic of Benin without proper pest control, making them prone to all manner of diseases.
“We should also understand that most of these smuggled products have exceeded their shelf lives and therefore expired and are not safe for consumption. Yet, they were re-bagged and re-labelled and dumped in our country.
“The smugglers took advantage of the recent mass deployment of officers and men in the Nigeria Customs Service to indulge in their unwholesome activities with the belief that we will be caught off guard.
“No suspect has yet been arrested because the drivers and motor assistants abandoned the vehicles and ran away on sensing that they had been trapped by the patrol team”, the comptroller said.
He pledged the command’s readiness to catch up with the antics of smugglers and would always try as much as possible to avoid bloodshed when confronting them, stressing that his men will continue to rely on intelligence gathering.