No fewer than five security personnel including officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and the Nigeria Army have sustained different degrees of injuries while foiling an operation of smugglers at Oja Odan area of Ogun State, FIJ can report.

Around 2am on Thursday, the security officers on the border intercepted bags of foreign rice stored in a building on the borderline of Ogun State and Benin Republic.

Sources tolf FIJ that four of the injured personnel are from Nigeria Customs while one of them is Nigerian Army officer. Some of the community residents who assisted the security officers in transporting the seized bags of rice into their vehicles were also injured.

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“While all of these officers and the community residents are now receiving medical treatment, two of them have to undergo surgical operations because the gunshots affected their lung and intestines,” Hammed Bukoye Oloyede, the Ogun Area 1 Command Public Relations Officer (PRO), confirmed to FIJ.

The spokesman added that one of the smugglers who shot at the security officers during night operation was apprehended.

In July 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari had banned the movement of food produce from all land borders in order to encourage local production and consumption. In December 2020, however, he opened four of the borders: Seme in the South-West, Ilela in the North-West, Maitagari in the North-West and Mfun in the South-South parts of the country, but Ogun/Benin Republic remains shut.

Despite the government’s restrictions, rice smuggling remains unabated across the borders, thereby stifling the market for locally-produced rice.