‘Plastic rice’ seized in Lagos
Nigeria Customs Service officials say they are investigating how hundreds of the dreaded plastic rice arrived in the capital, Lagos.
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Over one hundred bags of the rumoured toxic synthetic food has been impounded and evacuated from a warehouse in Ikeja, and customs officers suspect there could be more.
A publication by vanguardngr.com citing an official of the Federal Operations Unit of the Nigeria Customs Service said the bags of plastic had been packaged for sale during the yuletide and were due for evacuation before operatives swooped in on the managers of the warehouse.
The imported rice is said to be labelled as ‘best tomato’, and has no production or expiry dates.
“As I speak with you, we have successfully evacuated 102 bags of 25kg branded tomato Rice without any date of manufacture not to talk of expiration date and NAFDAC Batch Number.
“We are still investigating to ascertain how many of this rice has been circulated and how best to retrieve them in order to protect and safeguard the health of Nigerians and bring those behind it to book”, the publication quotes Comptroller Haruna Mamudu as saying.
Rumours of the presence of the dangerous ‘food’ item in Ghana have been denied by officials of the Food and Drugs Authority, who say their market surveillance and monitoring so far has yielded no such importation.
But they are asking for vigilance on the part of the public so any such suspicions could speedily be reported and investigated to protect public health.
