Despite being Africa’s highest producer of rice, Nigeria had spent an average of $4.2bn on its importation. These statistics were the basis on which the ban on rice importation was implemented in 2019.
However, the laudable strategy could not stop the smuggling of foreign rice by wayward local and foreign merchants especially from the nation’s neighbouring countries.
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This smuggling has impeded positive strides made by both private sectors and various government investments in the Rice sub-sector to increase its local capacity.
Bearing the brunt of this misdeed has been the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS). Each time the menace arises, the NCS is presumed to give the green light for law-breaking individuals, to bring in the prohibited commodity without any scrutiny.
The Senate Committee On Ethics, Privileges and Public Petition recently ordered the NCS to return foreign rice it had confiscated from traders’ shops in Ibadan, alleging that the officers, who carried out their mandate, erred by raiding the markets.
This contradictory directive forced the Rice Processors Association Nigeria (RIPAN) to call upon the senate at a press conference to revisit their resolution.
Although it seems like the senate has no concerns for the plight of local rice farmers, rice processor, and the Nigerian economy at large, there are few factors that could give grounds to their order.
One of them is the supply deficit of rice across the country. KPMG Nigeria revealed that only about 57% of 6.7 million metric tons of rice consumed by Nigerians yearly is locally produced.
The members of the senate committee had argued that the NCS breached the Customs and Excise Managements Act (CEMA) which empowers the agency to only impound smuggled goods within a 40-kilometre radius to the border.
Their argument is not tenable because the same Act under section 147(1) states that any officer, without prejudice, where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that anything liable to forfeiture under the Customs and Excise laws can, without a warrant, enter a building or any place, at any time and search, seize, detain, remove any such thing.
The interference of the senate committee in the Nigerian Customs Service operation in response to a moral dilemma is in every respect ill-judged.
Primarily, it compels one to believe that the committee is just giving backing to smugglers and economic saboteurs at the expense of subduing the efforts of obliging Customs officers.
Likewise, it also disregards the hard work of the multitude of large scale farmers, rice processors, and individuals investing in paddy aggregation and agro-input dealerships for the betterment of domestically produced rice.
And if this persists, it can lead to the crash of the entire rice processing and milling sub-sector that employs between thirteen to fifteen million Nigerians which will lead to the loss of jobs in a country where the labour market is not favourable.
It would be a priority misplacement to embolden miscreants and destroy the collective zeal in pursuit of guaranteeing Nigeria’s upgrade from a food importing country to a food-producing nation for the beneficial effect of the economy.
Zubaida Baba Ibrahim, Wuye District, Abuja. ([email protected])
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