Zamfara imposes curfew on all 14 LGAs | Nairalaw

Zamfara state government on Wednesday imposed curfew on all the
fourteen local governments from 7 pm to 7am.

Commissioner for Local Government Affairs, Bello Dankande Gamji,
announced the decision in Gusau.

The commissioner explained the curfew became unavoidable in view
of the security threat bedeviling the state.

He lamented a woman and her child were abducted recently when
she boarded a tricycle to her home.

Dankande, who was flanked by the Commissioner of Police
Celestine Okoye, warned the police will be spread in all nooks and
crannies of the metropolis enforce the curfew and arrest
defaulters.

He further revealed most of the crimes committed were organised
and perpetrated with some commercial motorcycle riders and tricycle
operators.

“We know that the action could be considered harsh or hard on
our people but such measures are must be taken in order to
safeguard our people, protect lives and property, ensure that peace
prevail in all corners of our state,” Dankande explained.

Over 70% of Rice in Nigerian Markets are Foreign-
Investigations
…. Customs, CBN React

Despite concrete and visible interventions of the Central Bank
of Nigeria (CBN) via the Anchors Borrowers Programme (ABP) on the
rice sub-sector of the Nigerian economy, over seventy percent (70%)
of rice in Nigeria markets are foreign or imported.

In a three-week survey on the rice market across the six
geopolitical zones in the country, Economic Confidential team
observed that foreign rice such as Mama Gold, Royal Stallion, Rice
Master, Caprice, Falcon Rice and Basmati are sold alongside
Nigerian rice namely: Umza and Fursa Crown from Kano, Mama Happy
from Niger, Labana Rice from Kebbi, Olam Rice from Nasarawa,
Abakaliki Rice from Ebonyi, Ofada Rice from Ogun State, Swomen Dama
from Plateau, Lake Rice of Lagos/Kebbi States among others.

The Nigeria Customs service (NCS) and the CBN has reacted to the
latest report.

Stakeholders in the rice subsector, namely, Rice Farmers
Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Rice Millers Association of Nigeria
(RIMAN) and Rice Processors Association of Nigeria(RIPAN) however
gave kudos to the apex bank for the timely intervention and banning
of rice since 2015, a development that has seen alarming growth in
local production of rice and serious saving of foreign
exchange.

The stakeholders in separate interviews laid the blame for the
inflow of the banned commodity on the doorsteps of the Nigeria
Customs Service(NCS), adding that for the federal government to
make meaningful impact in its fight against smuggling of the
commodity, serious attention must be paid to the various porous
borders which the Nigeria Customs Service has the constitutional
responsibility to man.

The development is coming almost four years after the federal
government banned the importation of the commodity through land,
sea and air.

As part of efforts to reach different markets across the six
geopolitical zones of the country, the investigative team spread
its dragnet to Singer Market Kano; Utako Market, Abuja; Terminus
Market Jos; Mile 3 Market Port-Harcourt; , Main Market, Onitsha;
Ogbete Market in Enugu, G-Cappa Market, Lagos and Jimeta Main
Market – Yola.

On-the-spot checks by this intelligence magazine show the
preponderance of foreign rice in these markets by merchants who
said that profits coming from foreign rice far out-weigh the local
rice whom majority of those interviewed believed has more
nutritional value than the foreign rice.

The dealers buy local rice at about N13,000 per 50kg bag, while
they sell it customers for between N15,500 to N16, 000. The same
merchants pay about N11,000 for the smuggled foreign rice and sell
to consumers between N17,500 and N19,000 per bag.

Speaking on the disparity between the cost of local rice and
smuggled foreign rice, Paul Nwadike, a rice distributor at Ogbete
market in Enugu said “My brother, let me tell you that gains we
receive from selling foreign rice is more than the local rice
because local rice is more costlier.”

Auwal Mukhtar a merchant in Singer Market Kano said: “There is
more market for us in foreign rice because it’s cheaper.”

Nwadike said. ‘tell them to bring the cost of local rice down”
he pleaded.

Another rice merchant Mustafha in Utako Market Abuja noted that
“I try as much as possible to buy foreign rice because my customers
prefer them and they are cheap’, he said.

Asked whether the quantity of local rice in the market more than
the foreign rice is, they said no!

The same go for Terminus Market Jos, Mile 3 Market
Port-Harcourt, Main Market, Onitsha.

They were reluctant to disclose how they got large supplies of
foreign rice.
One of them said: “Bros (short for brother) you want to spoil our
business? How can we tell you the source of our business?”

The rice traders in separate interviews attributed the upsurge
of rice smuggling to the ineffectiveness of customs service urging
the government to take necessary steps to overhaul the Customs and
its strategies to combat the menace.

When contacted, the spokesperson of the Nigeria Customs Service,
Mr. Joseph Attah lamented the deadly activities of rice smugglers
in Nigeria.

Attah said: “How much efforts are really enough. All our
warehouses and available places are filled up with seized smuggled
rice. The smugglers are becoming so deadly as a number of death
have beeng recorded from our confrontations with them.

“In fact the Federal Government recently gave a directive that
rice and other relief materials in the warehouses should be
distributed to orphanages and Internally Displaced People Camps to
address the plights of the victims as well as to free the
warehouses.

“We now urge the major stakeholders to join us in the campaign
against the deadly activities of smugglers through advocacy and
sensitizations that will lead to attitudinal changes in the part of
the smugglers.”

Also speaking on the same vein, the Central Bank Director of
Corporate Communications, Mr Isaac Okorafor said while agreeing
with many Nigerians that local rice has more nutritional value than
foreign rice however disagreed with our survey that the quantity of
foreign rice in Nigerian market far outweigh the local arguing that
the apex bank through its intervention has put smiles on the faces
of rice farmers and other stakeholders in the value chain .

“I don’t know the parameters used in your survey in terms of
quantity of rice both foreign and local. But I can assure you that
Nigerians would not like to go back to the dark days of rice
importation”, the CBN spokesperson said.

However, late last year, Economic Confidential recalls that the
federal government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) debunked
the report by the United States Department of Agriculture World
Markets and Trade that Nigeria imported three million metric tons
of rice in 2018.

The US report had said the import figure is 400,000 metric
tonnes higher than the quantity of the product that was imported in
2017.

The report also stated that Nigeria’s local rice production
dropped from 2016 to 2018 compared to the situation in 2015.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s neighbour, Republic of Benin however
recorded an increase in rice imports from Thailand, from 805,765mt
in 2015 to 1, 647,387mt as at November 2017.

Though government had claimed a reduction in the importation of
the commodity, existing statistics should be a cause for concern as
only Nigeria consumes parboiled rice while Benin prefers white
rice, an indication that rice imported to Benin are being smuggled
to Nigeria through the land borders.

Economic Confidential wholly agree that while legally imported
rice continue to decline, majority of rice in the Nigerian markets
are imported smuggled rice for which the country loses huge revenue
that should have accrued to it. Despite the ban, smuggling of rice
has continued to thrive as huge quantities of the commodity flood
the local market daily.