BY Mary Ugbodaga
Personnel of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) have seized some truckloads of foreign rice from Oja Oba market in Ibadan, Oyo state.
The customs personnel broke into some shops and warehouses, leaving the market with about eight truckloads of bags of rice.
Theophilus Duniya, spokesman of the federal operation unit (FOU), zone A, confirmed the development to NAN.
Duniya said the service is empowered to break into any shop or warehouse whenever it suspects contraband items are stocked in them.
He was quoted as saying: “An operation was carried out at the market. I cannot ascertain the numbers of bags of rice that were evacuated presently.
”As I speak with you, am yet to get that information but I can confirm to you that there was an operation and some bags of rice were evacuated.
“The act establishing the service empowers men and officers of the service to break into any shop or warehouse upon reasonable suspicion of prohibited items stocked therein, with or without warrant.”
The seizure comes a month after customs raided Bodija market, also in Ibadan, and seized some bags of rice.
The traders had claimed that no fewer than 88 shops were broken into.
In a similar manner, customs officials had also invaded Ikotun market in Lagos in March 2021.
Editor’s note: This picture was used for illustrative purposes
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