By Adesuwa Tsan
President Muhammadu Buhari has applauded the decision of his administration to diversify the economy from overdependence on oil, saying Nigeria would have suffered greatly from the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic on oil revenue if it had not invested in Agriculture and closed its borders.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said in a statement issued Tuesday that the President disclosed this while speaking at the fifth regular meeting with the Presidential Economic Advisory Council at the State House in Abuja.
“Going back to the land is the way out. We depend on petrol at the expense of agriculture. Now the oil industry is in turmoil. We are being squeezed to produce at 1.5 million barrels a day as against a capacity to produce 2.3 million. At the same time, the technical cost of our production per barrel is high, compared to the Middle East production,” he said.
The statement also revealed that President Buhari directed that more efforts should be geared towards boosting local production of food and specifically directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) not to release funds for importation of food items.
Garba quoted the President as saying the Nigerian elite think wrongly that Nigeria is oil rich and have abandoned agriculture in pursuit of oil, going further to direct the CBN “not give money to import food. Already, about seven states are producing all the rice we need. We must eat what we produce.”
“We will continue to encourage our people to go back to the land. Our elite is indoctrinated in the idea that we are rich in oil, leaving the land for the city for oil riches. We are back to the land now. We must not lose the opportunity to make life easier for our people. Imagine what would have happened if we didn’t encourage agriculture and closed the borders. We would have been in trouble.”
He also assured that his administration will keep a keen eye on food inflation in the New Year.
While emphasising the place of agriculture in efforts to restore the economy, Buhari agreed that measures must be put in place to curtail inflation in the country.
The meeting was convened to review and reflect on the global and domestic economy in the outgoing year. Attended by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, as well as Ministers of Finance and Humanitarian Affairs.
The statement added, ”The meeting noted the sharp deterioration in international economic environment and its impact on Nigeria’s continuing but fragile economic recovery; that Nigeria’s economic growth continues to be constrained by obvious challenges including infrastructural deficiencies and limited resources for government financing. It emphasized the need to make the private sector of the economy the primary source of investment, rather than government.
”The meeting reviewed progress towards structural reforms in response to the economic crises, including the institution of the Economic Sustainability Plan, the changes in electricity tariff and fuel pricing regime, the partial re-opening of the Land Borders, the movement towards unification of exchange rates and budgetary reforms through Finance Bill 2020 and 2021.
”It agreed that, to prepare the country for the challenges ahead, it is imperative to ensure Macro-economic stability, create certainty and re-build investor confidence in the economy. It emphasized the need to deepen structural reforms initiated by the administration as a basis for stimulating investments from domestic and international sources with a view to raising productivity in key sectors of the economy.”