In bid to ease the food scarcity and cut down market prices in the country, President Bola Tinubu has ordered the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) to return all seized grains to their original owners for retail in Nigerian markets.
The announcement was made by the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, during a stakeholder meeting in Kwangwalam, a border town in the Maiadua Local Government Area, of Katsina state on Saturday.
According to CGC Adeniyi, this directive aligns with President Tinubu’s commitment to ensuring that Nigerian citizens have access to sufficient and affordable food.
Adeniyi 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.
“We have over 120 trucks of food items for export seized, which means a lot of food items were taken out of our markets, leading to the unavailability that created some pressure on the prices of these food items. So, we hope that by the time we restock our markets, it will have some positive effects on the prices.”
The CGC visited former President Muhammadu Buhari in his country home of Daura as well as the emir of Daura, Dr Umar Farouq Umar in his palace where he was conferred with the traditional title of Mabudin Hausa by the emir.