President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wants all confiscated food items to be returned to the original owners.
In recent weeks, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has seized food items being smuggled out of the country. They auction the goods to Nigerians at a slashed price. During the last two weeks, seven persons were killed in a stampede in the Lagos office of the NCS during the discount sales of food items.
Tinubu has now directed the NCS to halt the redistribution. The items when returned to the owners should be sold at the market price to Nigerians, the President said.
“The whole idea is to promote food security and ensure that Nigerians will not be living with hunger and Mr President considers this as one of the strategies that can help address the problem of food security,” NCS boss Bashir Adewale Adeniyi said over the weekend.
Adeniyi said there were over 120 trucks of seized food items which would be released to the markets. The NCS would monitor the compliance of Nigerians to President Tinubu’s orders.
—Ezinwanne Onwuka reports for TruthNigeria from Abuja.
