Customs Raises The Alarm Over Poisonous Rice, Cigarettes In Circulation

The Ogun Area 1 Command of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has raised the alarm over a  poisonous brand of foreign parboiled Chinese rice which may have found its way into the Nigerian market.

This came as NCS said it evacuated a total number of 740 bags of Chinese rice, each weighing 25kg, but suspected to be poisonous from a warehouse in Sagamu axis of Ogun State during a night raid  by the anti-smuggling operatives of the command on the 15th of March, 2023.

NCS Controller for the Area 1 Command, Comptroller Bamidele Makinde spoke with journalists in Abeokuta, the state capital when he handed some illicit drugs intercepted by his operatives over to the state controller of National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), as well as on the first quarter activities of his command spanning a period of January till March, 2023.

Makinde, who said  12, 610 bags of foreign parboiled rice, each weighing 50kg and 25kg, representing an equivalent of 21 truck-loads being smuggled into Nigeria were intercepted by his command within the period under review, stressed that the 740 bags of poisonous Chinese rice were included.

“It is pertinent to state that from the above total bags of rice, we made a spectacular seizure of 740 bags of Chinese rice, each weighing 25kg, stockpiled in a warehouse in Sagamu axis of Ogun State on Wednesday, 15 March, 2023 at 22: 30hrs”.

Explaining importation of such goods, labelled and addressed in Chinese language is contrary to the extant laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the NCS Controller further disclosed that the command’s operatives equally made a seizure of 1, 446 cartons of imported cigarettes inscribed with Chinese language all over its cartons.