Following the rejection of the 1,800 bags of rice provided as palliative by the federal government to Oyo and other states, the Nigerian Custom Services, NIS, Oyo/Osun Area Command on Saturday faulted claims of Oyo that its own shares of the rice have been infested and unfit for human consumption.
The state had yesterday said that it planned to return the bags of rice.
Penpushing quoted the public relations officer of the command, as saying that the claim by the government was not only annoying but appalling.
According to the command, Governor Seyi Makinde’s executive assistant on agribusiness and special adviser on security matters, Dr Debo Akande and Fatai Owoseni respectively had allegedly came to its office to check the rice before evacuation from the warehouse.
“We were shocked to hear that the bags of rice were not good for consumption; these bags of rice are not expired. How can we now release expired rice for the public? This is very annoying.
“Oyo/Osun command has two warehouses, so the government representatives were the one that even chose the ones they wanted. Oyo State was the first to evacuate their rice before other states came to take their own”.
While sources told OYOINSIGHT.COM that the command is in the process of replacing the the ‘bad’ rice with 600 new ones, the command noted that although it is possible that a little number of the bags of rice might have an issue, saying that that does not mean that all the bags of rice were not good for consumption.
The command, however, said that efforts are ongoing to ease the tension, adding that the customs will still react accordingly.
