Yinka Adeniran, Ibadan
A MILD drama played out on Wednesday between workers of the Oyo State Government and officials of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on the controversial bad rice allotted to the state as palliative.
The government officials had stormed the Oyo/Osun Area Command of the NCS at Ikolaba, Ibadan with three-truck load of the weevil-infested rice purportedly given to the state as a palliative in the face of hardship being experienced by the people, but the rice and officials were denied entrance into the NCS office complex.
Oyo State Government had last week said it would return the 1,800 bags of rice given to the state because they were not fit for human consumption.
Keeping to its words, the Oyo State Government loaded the bags in trucks and drove to the Oyo/Osun Command headquarters of the NCS, only to meet closed gates manned by armed-bearing men of the Customs.
Speaking at the gate of Customs after being denied entrance, the leader of the delegation, who is also the Oyo State Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Jacob Ojemuyiwa, said the state had written a letter to the Customs to notify it of its intention to return the “infested” rice.
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