Thugs who started breaking into government warehouses in Adamawa State on Sunday morning have extended their act to private establishments.
Looting has continued in private warehouses and stores around the state capital, Yola and some other communities around the state even as this report was filed Tuesday morning.
A rice miller, Alhaji Mohammed Shemad, told newsmen Tuesday that he lost over N188 million worth of goods after thugs entered the stores of his mill and took away a total of 10,615 bags of processed rice.
The Managing Director of Shemad Concept Nigeria Ltd, a rice milling firm located in Bakin Kogi, Yola North Local Government Area (LGA), said the thugs descended on his mill after looting the nearby Adamawa State central stores on Sunday afternoon.
“Altogether, we had 10,615 bags of rice comprising 5,210 bags of white rice and 5,440 bags of parboiled rice,” Alhaji Shamad said.
He explained that his company sells white rice at N17,500 per bag to wholesalers and N18,000 per bag of parboiled rice to wholesalers, bringing his total loss to N188,095,000.
Shemad who takes his paddy rice for processing from a warehouse of his company located elsewhere in Yola, said thugs were about to break into that warehouse too when he was called, and he had to mobilise equally armed thugs to guard the warehouse.
Many other private establishments have been broken into since the free-for-all looting started in Yola on Sunday morning.
Among major outlets looted have been the PZ warehouse at PZ Junction, Jimeta from where food and toilet items were looted; NECAS, an agricultural equipment firm in Kofare from where tractors were taken away, and so on.
The hoodlums have similarly not spared the Yola stores of state and federal agencies like Adamawa Agricultural Development Project (AADP), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), among others.
All the looting went on despite assurance earlier by the state police command through its spokesman, Suleiman Nguroje that police and other security personnel would be enforcing a 24-hour curfew imposed on Sunday afternoon by Governor Ahmadu Fintiri.
