One million tonnes of smuggled rice may enter Nigeria – Processors petition Buhari

Rice Processors Association of Nigeria, a body consisting of over 25 million indigenous rice farmers, has sent a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari.
The processors say smugglers of foreign rice are beginning to flood Nigerian markets with smuggled products as the Yuletide season approaches and have warehoused over one million tonnes of the commodity in neighbouring countries.
The Chairman, RIPAN, Mr. Abubakar Mohammed; and the Secretary, who is a former Minister of Justice, Chief Michael Aondoakaa (SAN), in a joint statement in Abuja on Thursday, said if the development is not addressed, it would jeopardize over N200bn worth of investments in the sector.
Rice Processors Association of Nigeria, a body consisting of over 25 million indigenous rice farmers, has sent a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari.
The processors say smugglers of foreign rice are beginning to flood Nigerian markets with smuggled products as the Yuletide season approaches and have warehoused over one million tonnes of the commodity in neighbouring countries.
The Chairman, RIPAN, Mr. Abubakar Mohammed; and the Secretary, who is a former Minister of Justice, Chief Michael Aondoakaa (SAN), in a joint statement in Abuja on Thursday, said if the development is not addressed, it would jeopardize over N200bn worth of investments in the sector.
RIPAN stated that although it had sent its petition to the President through the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, and had briefed the Nigerian Customs Service on the matter, it felt the urgency to write the president.
“This has been confirmed by different agencies like NAFDAC, the NCS and a few others,” Mohammed added.
The association urged the Federal Government to engage the governments of the neighbouring countries where the commodity was warehoused to fashion out anti-smuggling measures to address the menace in order to save the Nigerian economy and its citizens.
It said, “The NCS should collaborate with the DSS and other relevant security agencies to track unpatriotic elements at the borders and bring them to book in order to deter others from being used by smugglers to smuggle over one million tonnes of rice currently warehoused in these neighbouring countries, with the dubious intention of smuggling it into Nigeria during the festive season.
“For if this is not checked, it will kill the huge investments made by the Federal Government in the various rice intervention programmes and it will also destroy the billions of naira invested by private sector stakeholders in the rice value chain.
“If this massive act of smuggling is not checked by the Nigerian government, it will undermine the zeal and efforts of over 25 million Nigerian farmers across the country who have gone back to farming in response to the present administration’s call for the diversification of the economy through agriculture.”