The Nigerian Customs Service has begun the distribution of seized food items to Nigerians to help mitigate the current hardship in the country.
The Comptroller-General of Customs, Wale Adeniyi, declared open the distribution of the items on Thursday in Lagos.
He said the Federal Government ordered the distribution of the seized food items.
Adeniyi said Customs was working with other agencies to distribute the seized food items directly to needy Nigerians.
Adeniyi said that Nigerians would require verifiable National Identification Number to benefit from the gesture.
He said: “Our target includes artisans, teachers, religious organisations and other Nigerians within the area of customs operations including the border areas.
“The intention of this distribution is to reach out directly to members of organisations that have structures to ensure the maximum impact of the exercise.
“The effort of the distribution is to ensure robust security protocol throughout the process as officers will closely monitor the entire supply chain to prevent any misuse or possible diversion of food items.”
Adeniyi said that the gesture was part of the Federal Government’s efforts at ensuring reduction of food prices in the country.
He added: “We collaborate with other sister agencies of the government, while Customs is the lead agency because the food items are with us.
“Among us here are the police, DSS, and tomorrow we are going to have a full department of all the sister organisations for proper monitoring.”
Adeniyi said the rice distributed had been certified fir for consumption by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control before being re-bagged to 25kg so as to reach as many Nigerians as possible.
The Customs boss said that 10 points had been created for the processing and interested Nigerians should come with their NIN to restrict people from benefiting twice.
The CG said that customs would work with the police in ensuring that the food items were not resold.
Adeniyi urged Nigerians to report any incident of misuse or unauthorised resale of the food items.
He said Customs would not hesitate to arrest and prosecute anyone in possession of any food items in their stores.
Adeniyi said that Customs officers had intercepted over 20,000 bags of 50kg parboiled rice, beans, maize, millet and beans.
The CG added that over 50 trucks containing the food times were currently detained by the area commands of the Customs.
He said other items seized included 2,500 cartons of 963 bags of assorted dried fish, dry pepper, seasoning, salt, cooking oil, macaroni, sugar and garri.
He said the NCS was working jointly with other sister agencies in carrying out the mandate to protect the borders from the inflow of smuggled goods and outflow of restricted goods.
