The Nigeria Customs Service, Eastern Marine Command, has seized food items valued at N250 million, intended for “illegal exportation” to Cameroon.Three truckloads of yam tubers and other assorted items, were being loaded into a boat for exportation in Ibaka, Oron, in Akwa Ibom State, when they were intercepted.
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The Customs Area Comptroller, Eastern Marine Command, Mike Ugbagu, disclosed this while briefing reporters at the Command’s headquarters in Port Harcourt on Thursday.
The text of the briefing was posted on Customs X handle.
Mr Ugbaku advised exporters to adhere to export procedures, adding that an attempt to transport goods through the creeks without following required protocols constitute “smuggling” which he said is punishable under the law.
He attributed the interception to the continuous surveillance and strategic efforts of the command operatives, whom he said “diligently patrol the creeks and beaches of the Southern waterways.”
The command, Mr Ugbaka said, arrested five suspects linked to the intercepted goods.
Meanwhile, President Bola Tinubu has directed the customs to return all seized grains to their owners, a measure he said will boost food sufficiency.
The Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, disclosed this on Saturday at a meeting with residents of border communities in Kongolam and Mai’Adua border stations of Katsina State.
Mr Adeniyi emphasised that the presidential directives was on a condition that the owners of the grains will sell them in local markets so as to help address the problem of food scarcity.
“Those food items will be returned, and it is a directive that it will be pass back into the Nigerian markets,” Mr Adeniyi said, adding that the customs will monitor implementation to ensure compliance.
Prices of commodities have escalated as a result of the removal of petrol subsidy by Mr Tinubu’s administration, a policy that has caused the price of petrol to increase from N189 to over N700.
Nigerians in different parts of the country have taken to the streets to protest the skyrocketing food prices, calling on the federal government to take steps to ameliorate their sufferings.
It is unclear if the presidential directive on the return of seized food items covers the three trucks of yam tubers seized at Oron in Akwa Ibom.
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