The Kano/Jigawa State command of the Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, on Friday impounded 250 bags of foreign rice concealed in a fuel tanker along Daura-Kano road.
The rice is said to worth over N5.5m of duty paid value.
This was made known by the Comptroller of the Command, Mr. Nasir Ahmed, while displaying the seized good neatly concealed in a tanker.
Accorsing to him, this method by smugglers is quite new and posed a new challenge to operatives.
“What we saw today is a little bit new, something that is challenging to our thinking. If somebody can load rice in a compartment that is supposed to be containing diesel, petrol or kerosene, then we should assume that they can conceal anything in the tank.
“It can contain Tramadol, it can contain arms and ammunition or any other prohibited goods, and they loaded it in such a way that it will be very difficult to detect. But through intelligence and diligence of our men, they were able to perceive it,” he said.
More so, he said storing or transporting rice or any other consumables in such condition has some serious health implications, as well as a security threat, owing to the fact that its a new method of smuggling.
However, while reacting to the incident, the President Kano Chamber of Commerce, Dalhatu Abubakar, said the dealers of locally milled rice were not helping matters by hiking the prices of local rice, as a result of which the foreign rice was still patronized.
He however, appealed to the federal government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to intervene by giving capital in form of soft loans to the dealers so that the price of commodity could be controlled.
