Customs seized 120 Smuggled Food Items

….As FG Blame Food Scarcity on Smuggling, Flooding, others

By Linda Ike

The Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, (NCS), Bashir Adeniyi says the service has arrested about 120 trucks smuggling food items from Nigeria to other countries.

Adeniyi stated this at the sectoral debate organised by the House of Representatives, on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said President Bola Tinubu has instructed that the arrested trucks be diverted to the local markets in the areas where they were arrested to offload the grains and other food items.

The Customs Boss who disclosed that the decision to halt the smuggling of food items is to reduce hunger in the country, condemned the attitude of border communities who have engaged security agents to smuggle grains out of the country.

He cautioned against adopting quick-fix solutions to addressing the food scarcity in the country,

Adeniyi said that currently, most agriculture inputs attract zero duty and zero VAT.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, said food scarcity in Nigeria and the increasing cost of food is as a result of smuggling of food across Nigerian borders and the Naira redesign policy.

He said the policy prevented the smallholder farmers from necessary funds to cultivate their farms during the 2022/2023 period.

Kyari also said that flooding which destroyed farmland across the country is another cause of food security in Nigeria