By Ade Jacobs
President Muhammadu Buhari has issued a fresh directive to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), not to release foreign exchange for food importers.
This is the second time the president will give such a directive within four months, after he earlier told the apex bank in September that “nobody importing food should be given money.”
The president reiterated the warning on Tuesday, December 29, 2020, during his fifth meeting with the Presidential Economic Advisory Council, at the State House, Abuja. The Council is under the leadership of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, quoted Buhari in a statement as saying that the country can produce enough rice and other food staples for local consumption, adding that it made no sense to fritter the nation’s foreign exchange to import food.
Buhari said some states in the country are already producing enough food for consumption, noting that agriculture is the only way out of the dependence on crude oil as the nation’s main foreign exchange earner. The president said the federal government will encourage people to go back to farming.
He said “The CBN must not give money to import food. Already, about seven states are producing all the rice we need. We must eat what we produce,” he stated.
The President had in September explained that Nigeria which hitherto had only three fertilizer blending plants now has 33.
“Going back to the land is the way out. We depended 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 cost.”
“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.”