FG Orders NAQS to commence Agro-Export

Chinazor Megbolu

The Federal Government of Nigeria has ordered the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) to commence Agro-Export with immediate effect.

In a statement on Sunday in Abuja the agency disclosed that the government had directed it to resume export of agricultural produce.

The statement signed by the Head, Media, Communications and Strategies, NAQS, Dr. Gozie Nwodo, quoting the Director General, NAQS, Dr. Vincent Izegbe as noting that the Federal Government has mandated the organisation to fully resume its export certification duties at all ports with immediate effect.

”The office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation has also issued a consequential whole-of-government directive instructing Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well state governments to cooperate with NAQS to enable a well-choreographed restoration of export traffic for the benefit of all Nigerians,” he said.

Izegbe also hinted in the statement that lockdown, which was announced by the President of federal republic of Nigeria towards curtailing the spread of the dreaded Covid-19 pandemic occasioned a hiatus in the agricultural value chain.

He buttressed that the order became necessary because almost all the states in Nigeria are under one form of curfew or the other as well as the ban on interstate transportation, institutional and logistical barricades blocking human and vehicular movement everywhere.

This situation made the passage of agricultural commodities from the remote production hotspots to the ports which are mostly located in the urban areas difficult.

Izegbe maintained that the Federal Government granted the Agency order to make agro-export kinetic again because of the manifest need to free all functions related to agricultural export on both the public and private sectors side from any encumbrance.

He, however, hinted that the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigerian Aviation Handling Company PLC (NAHCO Aviance), Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Federal Road Safety Commission, Vehicle Inspection Office, the Nigerian Police and other security agencies are now under obligation to collaborate with NAQS and other stakeholders to reanimate agricultural export.

Isegbe posited that producer and transit state governments were expected to grant the right to free passage to the consignments along efficient corridors that have been mapped by NAQS under a best logistics-support arrangement respectively.