Border closure: Ogoja Rice to hit market with reduced price

Santuscom Agro-Hub Investment Nigeria Limited, producer of Ogoja Rice, has said it will crash the prices of local brands as it begins harvest at its 1,000-hectare farm in Okpoma, Yala Local Government Area of Cross River State.

The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Santuscom, Chief Paul Santus, made this known while speaking with journalists on the farm’s effort to cushion the effect of rising prices of rice domestically as a result of the closure of the land borders.

Chief Santus said the Ogoja Rice brand would sell for N14,000 ahead of the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Since the recent closure of land borders by the Federal Government, prices of the commodity have risen to as much as N18,000 to N22,000, depending on which market.

Explaining further, Chief Santus said, “We at Santuscom Agro-hub Investment Nigeria Limited, producers of the popular Ogoja Rice brand, are concerned with the skyrocketing prices of rice after the closure of land borders by the Federal Government.

“We want Nigerians to understand the action by the government, and notwithstanding, we want to assure Nigerians that as a company, we will do everything possible before the Christmas and New Year celebrations to crash the prevailing and the current market prices of rice as we will be selling at N14,000 per 50-kg bag of rice anytime from now.

“Everything is ready for us to commence serious production of high quality and stone-free Ogoja Rice that would be very affordable and accessible by consumers in any part of Nigeria.”