Lockdown: Kano-anti-graft agency begins operation essential commodities

The Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission has issued a 24-hour ultimatum to traders engaged in hoarding food items and essential commodities to dispose of the goods or risk seizure.

The commission, in a statement on Sunday in Kano, also directed traders involved in unilateral hike in prices of food items to sell them at regulated prices or risk forfeiture.

“The commission has uncovered fraudulent activities by some traders, who are taking advantage of the lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic to hoard and inflate prices of food and essential commodities.

“Hoarding and unnecessary hike in prices of food items is capable of undermining government efforts to stem the pandemic and breach the security of the state,’’ its Chairman, Mr Muhuyi Rimingado, disclosed in the statement.

“This action (hoarding and unauthorised hike in prices of goods) is a crime, under the provisions of Regulation 11 (2) (3) and (4) of the Kano State Public Health (Infectious Disease) Regulations 2020.

“The action is capable of undermining the security of the state to the fact that a lot of Islamic clerics (Ulama) have been making reference to it in their Ramadan fast lectures.’’

The commission warned that it was stepping in as expected of it.

“Consequently and in accordance with Section 39 of the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti Corruption Law 2008 (as amended), this commission secured a search warrant before one of the mobile courts established for the purpose of the current situation.

“This is with a view of accessing the exhibits suggesting the hoarding and artificial inflation.”

Rimingado said the commission, based on intelligence-gathering, would embark on the search for and seizure of the food items hoarded by traders.

“This is in accordance with Section 39 of the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti Corruption Law.’’

He listed markets such as those at Singa, Dawanau, Hadejia Road, Bello Road, Malam Kato, Gezawa and Sharada as some of those to be raided by the commission’s operatives.

The commission chairman urged traders to shun unpatriotic and callous acts, warning that stores and warehouses found to be stocked with such items would be forfeited to the state government.

He explained that the title documents of affected properties would not only be revoked, but that such properties would be seized by government.

“Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje has approved the operation in the interest of the public and his (Ganduje’s) personal conviction that artificial scarcity of food and essential commodities is worsening the precarious palliative situation in the state,’’ Rimingado added.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the governor had earlier expressed concern at the development.

He observed that dealers and traders of food and essential items in the state were selling the commodities at a hike of above 100 percent.

Ganduje also confirmed at a briefing on COVID-19 on Saturday that two major manufacturers of essential commodities had informed him that they did not approve any price increase on their products.

These are Messrs Aliko Dangote and Abdulsamad Isyaka Rabiu, who are of Dangote and BUA Groups respectively and are indigenes of Kano state.

Consequently, Ganduje directed the anti-graft agency to monitor sales at points of sale of such commodities, confiscate the items from erring traders and inject them into the state’s palliative programme.

Such items would then be for distribution free to residents in accordance with relevant laws.

Rimingado expressed optimism that the measure would strengthen government palliative measures and cushion the effect of COVID-19 lockdown in the state. (NAN)