The Nigeria Customs Service says it is deploying new strategies to tackle hunger and food insecurity in the country.
The comptroller-general of the service, Wale Adeniyi, disclosed this while addressing journalists as part of his visit to Kano State on Friday.
Mr Adeniyi said that, as part of the strategies, the service was also engaging big grain markets across the country to ensure that they shun illegal exportation and hoarding of foodstuffs.
He said President Bola Tinubu had given a matching order to the service to ensure that excessive hoarding and illegal exportation of grains were curtailed.
“Apart from policing the borders, our mandate is to also ensure the protection of agricultural inputs as very essential elements to ensure food security,” said Mr Adeniyi.
He said hunger was an essential element of chaos and uncertainty that should be curtailed.
The comptroller-general said recent happenings called for urgent action to eliminate food insecurity and that the fundamental aspect of what the service was doing was enforcing the existing laws that prohibited items such as beans, cassava, rice, and sorghum from being exported.
He disclosed that the service, in collaboration with other federal agencies, had recently seized over 120 trucks of essential food items nationwide, adding that the items were part of what the service was distributing across the federation.
“I am emphasising that we are directed by Mr Tinubu to take all measures to reduce the problem of high prices of food items in the market and that some food items should be released back to the markets.
We are also leveraging our support from some strategic companies that use food items as part of their production materials.
“Customs has been charged to have engagement with the companies and that the strategic grains are released to the market rather than the companies,” said Mr Adeniyi.
Similarly, Mr Adeniyi noted that the service was taking serious measures to ensure farmers could harness their grains and bring them to the markets, rather than the usual approach where companies would buy everything.
NAN