The Nigeria Customs Service, Nigeria Immigration Service, Department of State Services and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have begun a clampdown on smugglers and hoarders of food items nationwide by escalating border surveillance, Saturday PUNCH has learnt.
This is coming after the Organised Labour declared a two-day protest against the current economic hardship in the country.
Sources in the Presidency and the NCS told Saturday PUNCH that the task force established by President Bola Tinubu to tackle food hoarding had heightened alert levels at Nigeria’s land borders across Borno, Niger, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi and Jigawa states, describing them as “dark spots.”
The development comes hours after an emergency meeting between the President, Vice-President Kashim Shettima, and state governors at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, on Thursday.
At the meeting, Tinubu who cited large-scale hoarding of food in Kano State, directed the National Security Adviser, the Inspector-General of Police, and the Director-General of the Department of State Services to coordinate closely and “ensure that security agencies in the states inspect such warehouses with follow up action.”
The President also ruled out importing food as part of strategies to address the high costs of foodstuffs and the economic hardship troubling the country.
Although 80 per cent of Nigeria’s grain is produced in the North-West and North-East, violence in the regions has largely compromised supplies, even as at least 63 per cent of the country’s 220 million people live in extreme poverty, according to the National Bureau Statistics.
A Presidency source, who is privy to ongoing operations of the government to crack down on food items’ hoarders, told one of our correspondents that cartels were now using the round-tripping system to smuggle goods across the borders, leading to price increases.
The source said, “There is an ongoing inter-agency operation involving the Customs, DSS, EFCC and other agencies. They moved to grain markets, especially markets around northern Nigeria, and they were able to discover large-scale smuggling of grains outside of Nigeria and most of these grains are actually being round-tripped. So, there are cartels specialised in round-tripping food items across Nigerian land borders.
“What they do is that they buy grains, say from Jigawa, enter into Niger Republic with them, then bring them back and sell at higher prices and they use foreign currencies, especially the CFA, so that they can be able to buy more food and then take it back to these countries and then bring back and sell here. So, it is a sophisticated smuggling chain. So, they (security agencies) have been able to bust a number of them.
“Now, the Federal Government has beefed up security across the borders to stop smuggling in Borno, Niger, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Jigawa states because these are the major dark spots. Even yesterday (Thursday) at the President’s meeting with governors, the Niger State governor raised an alarm about these same cartels. That was why he recently announced the banning of food moving outside of his state.”
The source further explained that the security agencies had uncovered huge stores containing hoarded food items principally by some major companies in the guise of manufacturing feed and other items.
The source explained, “One of the stores even contained about 50,000 tonnes of grains.
“A lot of the cartels have been busted in Kano, Borno and Katsina states. And in one grain market alone, five illegal Bureau De Change operators were discovered and arrested. They were exchanging CFAs and naira and were being used by these cartels to move money easily.