Special report by Dr Dele Sobowale

“FOOD SMUGGLING: FG intercepts 141 grain trucks, drivers threaten to strike over attacks.” News Report, March 6, 2024.

The full report, planted by the Nigerian Customs Service and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, claimed that “the Customs seized 120 smuggled grain trucks, EFCC intercepts 21.”For good measure, Nigerians were told that ‘Tinubu orders sale of forfeited food.” Millions of gullible Nigerians reading that news report would have assumed that the FG, The Customs and EFCC were actively working in the nation’s interest. Nothing can be further from the truth. Only a knowledgeable reader could have spotted the difference between truth and propaganda.

According to the story, “the grains and other staples” were being smuggled to Niger Republic, Chad, Cameroon and the Central African Republic. See a map of West and Central Africa.

ECOWAS MAP –INCLUDING CAR

Nobody needs to be a geographer to know that trucks smuggling anything to Niger Republic, which is father to the North of Nigeria, and those going to supply Cameroon, in the South East can never be in the same convoy!! The claim about Central African Republic is even more absurd. Just look at the map.
As it has often been the case when governments try to deceive the people, they start by convincing themselves that all the people can be fooled all the time. It only demonstrates how little intelligence these officials possess.

One searches in vain for the exact location where the 141 trucks were stopped for conveying alleged smuggled grains and other staples. The first question is: what were the other staples? Nigerian manufacturers have been supplying other ECOWAS nations with manufactured goods for more than a century. Those products have moved across the sub-region without hindrance long before the over-zealous officials of Customs and EFCC were born. Exporting them has never been prohibited; and it will never be in Nigeria’s interest to ban their export. So on what grounds were they seized?

Of the two agencies of government, both acting suspiciously, the EFCC is the one whose role in arresting trucks seems completely like total abuse of power. What was the EFCC doing on the highways; stopping vehicles and searching them without prior court order? If the goods, bought legally by customers are being transported to designated destinations, it is difficult to see the financial crime which the EFCC seeks to prosecute. There is no crime; even if the customer is based in Burkina Faso. Until we unilaterally repeal all the ECOWAS trade protocols, as we did to our sorrow under Buhari, goods, including food items, can move freely across the sub-continent. Neither the Customs nor the EFCC has the right to intimidate illiterate drivers; force them to surrender their load to be forfeited on account of an illegal order by President Tinubu. Playing to the gallery must have a limit because it is extremely dangerous for Nigeria.

Mr Dele Oyewole, spokesperson for the EFCC, according to VANGUARD, speaking on Radio 97.3FM, in order to make, what was probably an illegal arrest appear legitimate, said the “smugglers were arrested at the exit routes to Cameroon and Chad.” With all due respects to Mr Oyewole, that is pure drivel. Take a look at the map of ECOWAS again. To begin with, there are several exit points to the two countries – official and illegal. But, there is hardly any route that trucks heading for the two countries would use at the same time. His statement that “they could have been arrested anywhere else” was most revealing. Could they be arrested on their own factory before loading and charged with smuggling? Certainly, it was the EFCC which made the allegation of smuggling.

It is not up to the EFCC and the FG to judge the case. Nothing was said about charging them to court; for obvious reasons. The vehicles were still in Nigeria; carrying goods which might be scarce. But, it is not a crime to carry such goods in Nigeria close to the border of another country. Some Nigerian farms in Sokoto are right on the border with Niger. Would a truck carrying harvest from the farm be accused of smuggling? The absurdity is clear.

I honestly hope the owners of the merchandise have the guts to confront the EFCC in court. Virtually all the truck drivers in the North are illiterate. Some of the transporters are also not well-educated. Most of the time, the driver would be directed to go and load goods from one point to another. That is all.

An old adage has it that it does no good rowing harder if you are headed the wrong way. Right now, the Nigerian ship of state is heading for a shipwreck with regard to food production and supply. The Federal Government and some state governments, acting out of total ignorance and wanting to play to the gallery, have set in motion actions which will turn our current food crisis into a calamity.

The Katsina State Governor recently gave owners of warehouses loaded with food stuff to open them and start selling; otherwise, the government would force them open and sell off the food items. Such grandstanding based on ignorance will create more problems for us than they solve. Here is why.

MIDDLE MEN – HEROES OF OUR FOOD SUPPLY

Most food items are annuals – planted and harvested once a year. Food supply reaches it peak during the dry season; when supply exceeds demand. There is almost no food to be harvested, except vegetables, during the rainy season. To have food year-round, every country has developed a network of middle men, who store the excess during harvest, preserve them in specialised storage facilities and release the food gradually until the next harvest. Without this framework in place, human beings will experience vast excess of food supply for three or four months; followed by acute scarcity for eight months.

The much and unjustly maligned middle men, the Major wholesale food merchants, who buy the surplus, sometimes on credit, store them, preserve them from pests and make them available to smaller wholesalers (minor heroes in their own right) have invested a lot of funds in establishing their warehouses to hold large quantities of food stuff. The smaller wholesalers in turn sell to retailers who we consumers patronise. The food chain starting from the farm gate to our food tables consists of several million food depots, in various sizes, and transport vehicles, again of various sizes, holding large quantities of food. It cannot be otherwise. Contrary to what politicians, particularly members of the ruling party, and their hired staff would want to let us believe, the middle men (and women too) are not responsible for rising food prices. They are also not interested in hoarding for reasons to be explained presently. They are business men and women engaged in providing a vital function; without which we will be imperilled irrespective of the quantities of our output.

FOOD STORES: HOLDING, HOARDING AND HOODLUMS

“Do you know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?’
Count Axel Oxenstierna, 1583-1654.

The same question can be asked about Nigeria. Are we really aware of how little wisdom and intelligence our nation is governed under normal circumstances and now under multiple crises? Nigerian office holders, from Presidents to Governors, Local Government Chairpersons and now traditional rulers, have always acted with impunity and lawlessness even on matters on which they are ill-informed.

We need to remind ourselves, once again, that the country ran off our wobbly road to our destiny in just one day – May 29, 2023. President Tinubu announced two fundamental policy decisions on fuel subsidy and exchange rate, without adequate evaluation of the likely consequences. The nation has never been recognisable to all our citizens since that day. It will never be again – if care is not taken.

Among the most devastating repercussions of the decisions was the predicted increase of food prices on account of astronomical transportation costs from the farm to the table. Added to the widespread insecurity, led by herdsmen, granted immunity to bear arms and kill farmers at will, Nigerian and international experts on global and domestic food production, had predicted scarcity in 2023’2024. With an annual population increase approximately 6 million each year, the pressure on food supply now experienced was inevitable.

Tinubu was not prepared for this. Caught by surprise, his government has proposed several so called palliatives. None has worked. Like all politicians since time immemorial, the President and state Governors have tried to shift the blame to political opponents; so disingenuous was the strategy that an APC Governor actually blamed other parties for organising the protests in his state.

Was he actually elected Governor? Finding that approach unaccepted, they have turned their attention to those who for generations have established warehouses for the storage. Preservation and distribution of food stuff year round. They have been labelled “hoarders” and smugglers. Governors in some states, and even the federal government , have given approval to legalised hoodlums to break into the privately-owned warehouses and seize the food stuff found there.

That is the highest form of lunacy ever known to me – regardless of who authorised such criminal conduct. A man’s home is still his castle. Similarly, a man’s warehouse is his legitimate property. No President or Governor or EFCC Chairman has the right to order legalised hoodlums to break into the premises without a court order based on credible allegations of wrong-doing. One more time, permit me to state that I was involved in large scale farming and rice production in the North. Our mill alone had over 40 depots on site at Kalambina Road, Sokoto, Talata Mafara (now Zamfara State, Yelwa Yauri (now Kebbi State) among others. Food items – paddy rice and parbolied rice, in bags, would be found in all the depots. They were not being hoarded; they were being held and preserved because the supply at the time was in excess of demand immediately after harvest. So, an ignorant government official stumbling on those warehouses can be forgiven for thinking that the products are being hoarded. Let me educate our government leaders about why hoarding raw grains is not in the company’s or wholesalers’ interest. RISK.

The minute grains are stored in any warehouse, an invitation has been sent to all sorts of rodents, reptiles, insects, moulds, etc to come and eat. Regardless of how tight your silos or grains bins are, the resourceful antagonists of human progress will find their way in and destroy what they don’t eat. In my experience, total fumigation is carried out every quarter. Unprocessed paddy, which has been fumigated cannot be sent for milling for at least two weeks. An official stumbling into the premises might report that he saw food items being hoarded for applause. In reality, what he would have done is to halt a long process starting from the farm to the retail outlet.

The owner of the strorage facility is exposed to several risks which are not covered by insurance – arson, civil unrest, flooding among others. Thus, his interests are imperilled everyday he holds something in his warehouse for release AT THE APPROPRIATE TIME.

CONCLUSION.

We are already in trouble with respect to food supply in the country at the moment. Government officials, at all levels, should not make things worse. A long time friend, whose truck was stopped while going to deliver grains to a hotel, and accused of trying to smuggle food to Niger, vowed to close his business and move out this year. He inherited the business from his father 43 years ago. It will be difficult to find anybody else to fill the gap that his departure will create in his own community. Is that what we want?