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NIGERIA Customs Service and the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to stop rice smuggling through land border into the country. President Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Alhaji Aminu Goronyo, disclosed this on Wednesday in\u00a0Abuja.\u00a0He said even though the\u00a0importation of rice through the land borders was banned since April 2016 with an extension to the restriction of rice into the Nigerian market from the Export Processing Zones (EPZ), yet smugglers still engaged in the unwholesome act. Goronyo advised Nigerians shun the consumption of foreign rice, saying that most of the imported rice are stale and only meant for animal and fish feeds. He disclosed that the result of a test carried out by NAFDAC on some samples of the smuggled rice seized by Customs through the land borders showed that they are unfit for human consumption, although he did not make public the result of this test. \u201c99 per cent of rice smuggled through the land borders are not fit for human consumption,\u201d he said. Goronyo said that the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (rtd), reiterated recently at a joint meeting with RIFAN and Customs that rice importation remain banned through the land borders. The RIFAN President said to ensure effective monitoring of the land borders, the Comptroller-General has approved a 12-man\u00a0implementation committee to be headed by Assistant Comptroller-General, Alino Dangaladima. He said that the Comptroller-General agreed that there was need for total ban on rice importation and effective monitoring of the land borders to stop the activities of the smugglers, while promising the association that Customs will to continue to ensure the restriction of rice import through the land borders to boost local production, and . The RIFAN president added that the customs boss reassured his association that any attempt by anyone to import rice through the land borders would be resisted, saying the position remain unchanged. He said the customs told them that it had deployed more officers and men to borders to enforce the order. According to him, customs had also re-organised its anti-smuggling patrols to provide additional capability, to enforce the ban of rice import through the land borders. Goronyo said that the committee would be replicated at the state level to be headed by all state chairmen of RIFAN and its members would serve in the committee to be headed by the state comptroller of customs. He said the enforcement has become imperative because the ongoing Rice Revolution undertaken by many state governments, and Strategic Interventions by the Federal Government Agencies was a step toward self sufficiency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NIGERIA Customs Service and the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to stop rice smuggling through land border into the country. President Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Alhaji Aminu Goronyo, disclosed this on Wednesday in\u00a0Abuja.\u00a0He said even though the\u00a0importation of rice through the land borders was banned…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,52,26,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1430,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions\/1430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}