THE federal government has said only those with the National Identification Numbers (NIN) will be eligible to buy rice at the subsidised rate of N40,000 per 50kg bag as it begins sales of the 30,000 metric tonnes of milled rice.

During the flag-off ceremony of the rice intervention on Thursday, September 5 in Abuja, the minister of agriculture and food security, Abubakar Kyari, said that the rice will strictly be sold on a “one person, one bag” basis.

He noted that the initiative by the federal government to provide subsidised milled rice to the nation comes as an effort to cushion the effects of rising food prices.

“This food intervention can be said to be timely considering the times and challenges we are in as citizens of this great nation.

“As one of the numerous efforts of the present administration to cushion the effect of high cost of food commodities, kindly join me in applauding the immense efforts of the present administration such as the release of 42,000MT of assorted food cmmodities (AFC) to vulnerable and the 30,000MT of milled rice which is being flagged-off for sales to Nigerians today September 5, 2024,” he said.

He further explained that in a bid to have a fair distribution, a multi-disciplinary government task force has been deployed, adding that the beneficiaries will be verified through identification methods such as the NIN and phone numbers to stop them from buying more than one bag of the rice.

Additionally, the drector of strategic grains reserve, ministry of agriculture, Haruna Sule, said that it will be accessible to civil servants at designated points using their Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) details.

“To qualify for the one person, one bag, you must have a National Identification Number. Of course, you have phone numbers and those in public service are all registered under the IPPIS platform.

“Once you have any of these three, at the point of sale, with the NIN logged into the system, a code number and a treasury receipt will be generated, and with that, the buyer can get to the collection centre and pick up his bag. The receipt will indicate, the time and point of collection to eliminate stampede,” he stated.

The federal government earlier announced the sales of rice to Nigerians at a subsidised rate which was one of several initiatives by the President Bola Tinubu-led administration”s plann to ease living conditions for citizens.

The surge in food prices has worsened the hardships faced by the masses and has recently resulted in the aggression of Nigerian youths to march on the streets against hunger, hardships, and bad governance.

Nigeria faces a food inflation crisis that jumped to 40.87 per cent in June, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics.