{"id":31489,"date":"2016-12-31T09:01:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-31T09:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/nigeria-rice-contaminated-not-plastic-nafdac\/"},"modified":"2016-12-31T09:01:20","modified_gmt":"2016-12-31T09:01:20","slug":"nigeria-rice-contaminated-not-plastic-nafdac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/nigeria-rice-contaminated-not-plastic-nafdac\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria rice &#8216;contaminated, not plastic&#8217; &#8211; NAFDAC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Lab tests on a consignment of rice seized by Nigerian customs officials show that the product is &#8220;contaminated&#8221; but not plastic, the National Agency For Food and Drugs (Nafdac) says.}<\/p>\n<p>The rice contained bacteria &#8220;above permissible limits&#8221;, a senior Nafdac official said.<br \/>\nCustoms officials&#8217; claims that the rice seized in Lagos last week was &#8220;plastic&#8221; sparked confusion and official denials.<\/p>\n<p>The health minister intervened, saying there was &#8220;no evidence&#8221; for the claims.<\/p>\n<p>Tests on samples of the rice showed that it was &#8220;unwholesome for human consumption&#8221;, exceeding the maximum limit for bacteria including &#8220;Coli form&#8221;, Nafdac said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The Nigerian customs service, speaking at the same press conference, said that it had acted on &#8220;credible intelligence&#8221; that &#8220;large consignments of plasticized rice were&#8230;. to be shipped from the Far East to Africa&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the outcome of the lab tests, intelligence still indicated that &#8220;several metric tonnes of expired and dangerous rice are still lying in wait at warehouses in neighbouring countries&#8221;, with the Nigerian market the ultimate destination, customs chief Ibrahim Ali told media.<\/p>\n<p>Rice is Nigeria&#8217;s staple food and it is a tradition for people to give bags of rice as a gift during the Christmas period.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-17372 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_93059895_rice2.jpg\" alt=\"Each bag of rice weighed 25kg (55lb)\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Lab tests on a consignment of rice seized by Nigerian customs officials show that the product is &#8220;contaminated&#8221; but not plastic, the National Agency For Food and Drugs (Nafdac) says.} The rice contained bacteria &#8220;above permissible limits&#8221;, a senior Nafdac official said. Customs officials&#8217; claims that the rice seized in Lagos last week was &#8220;plastic&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31489"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31489"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}