Nigerians have reacted after a online videos showed residents of Lagos State queueing to purchase bags of rice sold by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) for the sum of N10,000.
Among those who reacted are Nollywood actors Kunle Remi and Yvonne Jegede.
Customs announced that the distribution of seized food items would commence on Friday, February 23.
In a statement issued to journalists in Lagos, the NCS Comptroller General, Adewale Adeniyi, disclosed that customs officials are not allowed to be involved in the process.
In the video, the women queued in an orderly manner while going one after the other to collect the bags of rice they paid for.
According to the statement issued through the service’s National Public Relations Officer, Abdullahi Maiwada, Adeniyi stated that the rice will be packaged in 25kg bags and sold for N10,000.
The target groups, he said, included artisans, teachers, nurses, religious bodies, and other Nigerians within its operational areas.
The aim, he said, is to establish direct communication with members through these structured systems in order to guarantee the utmost effectiveness of this initiative.
Adeniyi cautioned against the resale of food items, emphasizing that the NCS is fully dedicated to transparency and accountability throughout the entire process.
This has made many Nigerians unhappy and many have taken to the comment section of blogs to express their frustration. Movie actor, Kunle Remi sarcastically asked the federal government to add more foodstuff instead of just rice.
Kunle Remi wrote:
“Please they should add FG stew and small fish.. with ONE long seized plantain. Just one.”
Yvonne Jegede wrote:
“Sanwo Olu, Why feed us? Why can’t you just employ us? Get people out to start digging sewages, laying pipes underground, sweeping the streets and paying them as little as minimum wage, since the industrial sector is almost dead.
Why would you even prefer to feed your citizens “Mama Put”, 🙆🏻♀️ taxpayers have been reduced to beggars.🤷🏼♀️.. When will someone just have mercy on us?
When will someone just feel pity for this great country? 🇳🇬
Someone in the presidency should please just sorry for us, please 🙏, we are not even doing shakara at this point. We all know that at this point NOBODY is happy with this situation…🇳🇬”
Other reactions:
iamstepee: Turned a whole country to beggars so you can can control them with poverty
kingsleyudehemeka: These are people’s hard sweat
yonisecretsng: Please after it’s being sold for #10,000, what will the funds made from the sales of the rice be used for?
seun_dreams: You Dey sell contraband goods as charity, I’m lost😳
littlebellaz_: They had time to rebrand and repackage
trendies_treats: All the people buying the rice would go back to sell them for 70k.…. Na we dey do ourselves
zomyfeet_zf: I thought it was supposed to be giving for free. Nawaooo
ori_yomi01: This will definitely go a long way for many individuals n family, so please don’t criticize the little effort n offers… And again, Ramadan is around 👏 👏
dlookmakeup; Pples hard earned money sold to hungry Nigerians not even dashed?