The Nigeria Customs Service, Sokoto/Zamfara Area Command, has released 15 seized trucks of grains domiciled in its Command to the owners.
The Command’s Public Relations Officer, Abdullahi Abubakar, made the disclosure in a statement on Tuesday. According to Abubakar, the development is in line with the directive from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Recall that, in an effort to increase food sufficiency, President Tinubu instructed the Nigeria Customs Service over the weekend to release all food items that had been seized from owners at border villages, provided that the owners would sell the products Nigerian marketplaces.
While handing over the trucks of grain at the Command’s headquarters in Sokoto, the Customs Area Comptroller in charge of the Command, Kamal Mohammed, charged the traders to reciprocate President Bola Tinubu’s magnanimity by ensuring that the grains were sold to Nigerian markets.
Kamal added that the command, in collaboration with the Customs Intelligence Unit and the Joint Border Patrol Team, “would monitor the sales of these grains in Nigerian markets and ensure they were not smuggled out of the country.”
He further enlightened traders and the general public that grains are under the extant Export Prohibition list.
Kamal said that the command would make the borders unsafe heaven for smugglers, “unpatriotic elements penchant to make money at the detriment of the country.”
In response, the Secretary of the Grain Sellers Association of Sokoto, Dahiru Ladan, thanked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for tempering justice with mercy.
He assured the president that the union would ensure that the grains were sold to Nigerian markets.
He assured the President that the union will see to it that the grains were sold to markets in Nigeria.
