Breaking : Customs Seize Trucks Of Foreign Rice Allegedly Imported By C'River Govt

The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), Cross River State Command have seized three trucks, a Peugeot J5 and Sienna vehicles containing thousands of bags of foreign rice.

A source who pleaded not to be mentioned alleged that the rice was imported by the Cross River State government in December last year.

He explained that the State Command got the information to seized the trucks and vehicles from the Customs headquarters in Abuja.

The source who expressed disappointment that a state government could fund the smuggling of an item banned by the Federal Government added that the NCS has not expressly established how the products Cross the boarders to the country.

According to the source, the rice is suspected to belong to the government as one of the trucks and the J5 vehicle carried official Cross River State government plate numbers and had armed Police men as escorts.

Although investigation is yet to reveal what government intend to do with the rice but rumour mills have it that the rice would have been repackaged and sold as products from Governor Ben Ayade's farm.

It will be recalled that in September last year, Governor Ayade during a visit to the northern part of the state promised that locally produced brands, 'Ogoja and Ayade Rice' will flood the market in December but this never happened.

Although, the Governor's social media aides in the past few days have flooded the social media with pictures of bags of rice with the brand 'Ayade Rice',  commentators have continued to question the government's sincerity over the claim thereby raising concerns that the rice was imported to be repackaged and sold as the locally made brands.