Investigations by this newspaper revealed that while the protests were going on, smugglers leveraged on the openings created by the violence to flood markets in Ogun and Lagos States with smuggled foreign parboiled rice and other banned items.
While the mayhem lasted, smugglers moved contrabands around unhindered as the joint border drill operatives stationed near Covenant University, along Sango-Idiroko Road, Ota could not return to their posts weeks after hoodlums attack officers at the checkpoint. His visits to some markets in Lagos showed that prices of rice have crashed by almost 50 per cent as a result of the unhindered activities of rice smugglers aided by the #EndSARS protest, a situation that has left local producers, warehouses stocks and distributors in a fix.
Lagos is a major financial centre for all of Africa and is the economic hub of the country. The megacity has the fourth-highest Gross Domestic Product in Africa and is one of the most populated states in the country. “You can see the paltry seizure made by the Seme border command last week. That is not what Seme command is known for in terms of anti-smuggling but the need for face-saving accounted for why they made that seizure available.
“We have been rendered helpless by smugglers who dumped expired rice in our markets. We are close to the Yuletide and nobody is buying because most Nigerians still prefer foreign rice even when they are aware that they have expired. She said: “I used to sell at least two hundred bags in less than a month but it is not so again. I have not been able to pay my suppliers because I can’t sell below the amount I bought from them. Like other local rice, Ga’ate Gold Rice was already gaining ground in some parts of Lagos but smugglers are frustrating the efforts of local producers.
“We needed the protest to stop the police from extorting us on the road. We did not need it to break into warehouses where Nigerians like us have suffered to produce and keet our goods in the warehouses.