Customs, Farmers Trade Words Over Smuggling Of Foreign Rice

The Nigeria Custom Service has disagreed with the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria over resurgence of foreign rice in Nigeria markets, saying that rice farmers are ‘crying wolf’.

Speaking on NTA’s Good morning Nigeria’ show on Monday, the Public Relations Officer of Customs, Mr. Joseph Attah said that the Nigerian rice farmers and processors have continually given a wrong narrative on the activities of Customs Officers at the land borders.

He dismissed claims by the farmers that foreign rice is still rampant in Nigerian markets as only little has been achieved in checking rice smuggling

He said, “From our point of view, when we continue to give the narrative of criminal victory over security agencies, we may not be fair to the officers, knowing that many officers have been killed in their operation.

“When the borders were closed, the sector was singing our praises that we are doing a lot, while other sectors have maintained that there has been continued smuggling.

“I will not say that rice smuggling is not ongoing in some routes, hence we call for Nigerians to support in this fight against smuggling.”

Attah said that the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col Ali Hameed (Rtd) has given a marching to deal with traders of foreign rice,

He said, “Woe be-tide any trader that would trade foreign rice following the directive of the Comptroller-General, we hope that we would not have an outcry that custom have become reckless.

“We understand that smugglers are being empowered by some Nigerians. But we will not relent efforts in curbing their activities

“I am not talking about a Service that is challenged but a Service that is confronting a challenge and confronting it well despite our bucket of challenge, and sabotages here and there.”

“We have got to a point where we feel that the farmers have the same intelligence that we don’t have, hence we call on them to join us in the fight against smuggling.”

But the Director-General of the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria, Andy Ekwelem who was also featured on the show, said that issues of smuggling have continued to affect the association’s effort to boost local production of rice in the country.

According to him, rice produce that have been kept in other countries before the border closure are now being smuggled into the country.

“One thing we discovered was that before the border closure, a lot of rice has left India and were warehoused in Benin Republic, and they were stopped because of the border closure, and immediately with the re-opening, they saw an opportunity to bring in these products, and thereby displacing locally processed rice.”

He explained that the Federal government through the Central Bank of Nigeria has resolved the issue of funding gap in the value chain, adding that the activities of smugglers poses a great threat to the N3.5trn rice market.

“The present administration has done a lot to ensure that we grow our rice production capacity and the positive impact are evident as we see a lot of people investing in rice processing, large scale farming, we see youths being encouraged to go into farming rather than waiting for white collar jobs,” he added.

He explained that effort to achieving local rice sufficiency is not failing, as Nigerians still have preference for locally produced rice.

He said, “Achieving sufficiency in rice production is still work in progress and we are working towards it, but we still have the problems of smuggling and distortion of the market.

“One notion I must correct is the belief that Nigeria has a preference for foreign rice, it is not true. When you go around, people still search for local rice.”

He explained that smugglers collaborates with traders people who off-take the produce from them, stressing that the best way of addressing the menace is to make a legislation that criminalises the sales of foreign rice in local markets.

He said, “We need to move beyond seizing rice, we need a legislation that will try and jail sellers of foreign rice in the markets. This will discourage smugglers; let us focus on those selling the foreign rice.

“What we need to do to make sure that we still have a productive local rice market, we need to tackle smuggling and put an end to it so that we can move forward.

He attributed the increase in rice demand to a rise in Nigeria population, stating that the indigenous producers need to take advantage of the population by ramping up production.