Even though Nigeria’s land borders were shut for 16 months from August 2019 to December 2020, ‘foreign rice’ still somehow filled up warehouses in some popular rice markets across the country, especially Lagos.
Driven by cost difference, which sees foreign rice cheaper than the locally produced, as well as individual preferences of taste and aesthetics, some dealers braved the odds to still get foreign rice smuggled into Nigeria.
Yet, the border areas had seen security presence more than quadrupled over the several months of border closure. Multiple security agencies including the army, and especially police, had been drafted to complement the work of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) in enforcing the border closure. The seemingly overhauled security architecture around border areas, it would appear, was either cosmetic and inefficient, or blatantly compromised.
The Nigeria Customs has now embarked on raids of warehouses suspected to be holding rice brought into Nigeria during the border closure, questioning on one hand the agency’s ability to secure the country’s borders and at the same time, the extent of Nigeria’s self-sufficiency in rice production.
“They are just taking advantage of the ordinary person in the market,” said Ajayi Adekunle, managing director, Double Door Limited, who has been in the rice business for about 20 years, first as an importer and now as a distributor of local rice.
According to Adekunle, the smugglers pay customs officers to bring in foreign rice, only for those who have bought for retail at the market to have the same products confiscated by officers of the same agency, albeit from other units.
Those who facilitate the rice across borders into Nigeria are Beninoise, who hand them to people called ‘Crossers’ who bring in the rice, settle Customs and all expenses are subsequently added to landing costs. The smuggling is often done under the cover of darkness, but not without some Customs’ officers being able to know what is happening, they are involved and are paid, as confirmed in a previous BusinessDay investigation.
Once in the market, local merchants buy from these ‘Crossers,’ but in all of these, the Customs’ officers who connived with them are aware of the destination, said this source. Often times, when the raids are done, the source said, it is because those at the border, who allowed the smuggling, had informed their counterparts in the cities of where those shipments could be found.
He further claimed that following such raids, the “the Customs calls people to come and buy (the rice) at market prices, not even at discount.”
For Adekunle, “It is a cycle of scam,” insisting the borders are not porous, just a game for the Customs officers.
“From Badagry to Idi Iroko, there is nowhere in that axis where there is a road without Customs presence. Even when they use the bush, they eventually emerge on the road.”
As this reporter also observed during a 2019 investigation in some border communities of Ogun State, at short intervals of about five minutes’ drive, there are Customs checkpoints where officers check and cross check vehicles for contraband goods.
“Most of the things smuggled in before did not come through the traditional borders; therefore, it was the wrong gate that was closed,” said Emmanuel Ijewere, vice president, Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG), in an earlier interview. “When you go to town, you still find all imported chicken are available and many other things. How did they get here?”
As Adekunle insists, the Customs’ service “has all it takes to checkmate any form of smuggling if not for the fact that there is a bargaining system between them and the smugglers.”
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