Ninety-nine per cent of rice smuggled through the land borders is not fit for human consumption.

This is because samples of some of the rice seizures made over a period were referred to NAFDAC to ascertain their condition and the test reports certified that smuggled rice through the borders was unfit for human consumption.

Comptroller-General of Customs, retired Colonel Hameed Ali, said this at a joint news briefing on illegal rice importation to Nigeria, saying importation of rice into the country was not banned but restricted on the point of entry to seaports only.

Ali said during his recent trip to Benin Republic to engage with colleagues in customs on effective management of the borders, some delegations from groups came giving commitments to pay all charges applicable if customs relaxed the policy on borders.

According to him, there has been a significant increase in seizures in the first three quarter of year, saying 117,034 (50kg) bags of rice seizures had been made at a duty paid value of N774.2 million.

He said customs seizures had revealed several ingenious but devilish ways of smuggling into country what Nigerians consumed as food, saying promoters of the economic subterfuge were seeking a re-introduction of quota system to import 1.5 million tonnes through the entry point

Ali said many state governments had injected massive investments in local production of rice, saying the Federal Government, through the intervention by CBN and Bank of Industry, was also investing to give momentum to rice revolution.

According to him, Kebbi State Government, in 2016, harvested over 700,000 tonnes from irrigation farming while 800,000 tonnes were projected from rain-fed rice farming with similar projection from other states across the country.

He said customs was inundated with periodic intelligence about ship loads of parboiled rice that offloaded regularly in the neighbouring port of Cotonou, saying Benin Republic did not eat parboiled rice, adding that the imports were ultimately destined for Nigeria by smuggling through the land borders

The Comptroller-General said with the support of patriotic Nigerians, “we will not only achieve national self-sufficiency of rice in 2017 but be in pole position to clamp a total ban on its importation in the years ahead”.

In April, customs re-introduced the ban on importation through the land borders, however, the reversal of the policy introduced in October 2015, was informed by high level of non-compliance by rice importers who resorted to large scale smuggling of the product.