In a proactive move to address the prevailing challenges of food scarcity and hardship gripping the nation, the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, has enjoined Dawanau International Grains Marketers in Kano State, to avoid any act that will jeopardize the availability and affordability of food for Nigerians.
During his visit to the market over the weekend, Adeniyi emphasized the imperative for vigilance against hoarding of food supplies, underscoring the gravity of the ongoing situation, “While we remain confident that you will abide by the rules, we will deploy intelligence to ascertain the level of compliance.”
He said, “this directive underscores the government’s commitment to mitigating the effects of food shortages and ensuring equitable distribution of resources amidst the current national crisis.”
He said the president had identified the ongoing hardship and food scarcity in the country, hence directed that the Act must be fully implemented to ensure that the food items were not illegally exported out of the country when people were in dire need of them.
The Comptroller-General then urged the Dawanau grains dealers to assist the government by complying with the directive banning the exportation of food items to provide enough food to the people.
“We work with you to ensure that our joint objective of achieving national law and so many issues which have been raised. I listened to you with rapt attention about creating an export warehouse in this market.”
In his remarks, the President of the Dawanau Market Development Association, Muttaka Isah, told the Comptroller-General that members of the association were facing some challenges, which included “the unfounded allegation in some quarters that our dealers hoard grains in their warehouses.
“I want to seize this opportunity, Sir, to deny this baseless allegation and to inform Nigerians that we do not hoard foodstuffs; whatever grains we procure from the growers and other sources, we store them in our warehouses for a while before we supply them directly to our customers in the markets.
“So, we store these grains for operational convenience and to protect the foodstuffs from foreign bodies that might spoil them.”
