When the news about this plastic rice madness started filtering in, a National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) official gave us a low down on how rice is produced artificially. She said that potato starch is mixed with plastic (resin, for example) which then takes the form of grains of rice. These grains are then steamed with a typical rice flavour and are passed on to unsuspecting consumers as the real thing.
Reports indicate that this brand of ‘rice’ is deliberately, knowingly imported into the country by some unscrupulous businessmen and put in the market for sale. And to evade suspicion, it is sold about the same price as the real rice. It is convenient to conjecture that the only reason why anyone would want to indulge in this dastardly act is to make enormous profit and become classified as a successful businessman. To borrow their lingo, to ‘make a kill on the high seas.’ This, in our view, is profiteering taken to insane limits.
In this country, we have had cases where importers collude with foreign manufacturers to produce fake and substandard goods like motor spare parts, household items, electronics, shoes and clothes as well as pharmaceuticals. In this category of products, attempt is made to produce a lesser quality of the original item. Dangerous as the practice is, the effect on the wellbeing of the populace pales in intensity when compared to when someone is eating flavoured plastic as rice. Using a fake product is not the same thing as ingesting an artificial (unnatural) product like plastic in the mistaken belief that one is eating food.
For most Nigerians, rice is no longer a Sunday- Sunday delicacy. It is now a staple that is eaten almost every day. That explains why it is in high demand and why also importers go to the farthest ends of the world to bring the product in. On the surface, there ought not to be any problem with that. But for someone with a soul to bringing in plastic as rice is, in our considered opinion, the culmination of all that is evil and wicked. Doctors warn that three solid portions contain as much plastic as a small plastic bag. Imagine the health hazard posed by that quantity of plastic in one’s system.
There is also the information trending that all kinds of mammals are being killed, processed, imported and sold to us as sausage, beef, hotdog, sandwich or whatever. Even locally, an ongoing fad among market men and women is to force farm produce like bananas, plantain, mango, oranges to ripe unnaturally by using calcium carbide, a very poisonous chemical with carcinogenic properties. Still, it is not as horrendous as confusing Nigerians to eat plastic as food.
It is gratifying to note that the government and its agencies are aware of the existence of this matter that has the potential to generate health issues. The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) is already on the watch out so also are NAFDAC and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON). Seizing the product when it lands in the country is a good move and we commend it. But it will be better if we stop it from coming in at all. The recent seizures were in warehouses. There is no way to know that some had not escaped into the market before NCS struck.
We urge the Nigerian government to approach the matter with all the seriousness it deserves by taking it up with the particular country mentioned as the source of this unwholesome product. This goes beyond the niceties of diplomacy. Nigeria should actually see it as an act of biological warfare and address it as such. The government of that country cannot claim that it does not know what is going on. When a similar situation arose in the case of fake and substandard products, the blame was shifted to Nigerian businessmen. Certainly not in this case because the producers marketed the product to the criminals masquerading as businessmen in Nigeria.
Above all, the Muhammadu Buhari administration should see this as a call to effective action and redouble its effort to make locally produced rice available at an affordable price. We also think that it is time we banned the importation of rice. We will not die in the process. It is pertinent to point out that the real issue is the stupid taste we all have cultivated for foreign made products. It is a status symbol we must do away with in our collective interest.
