Buhari’s government breathes hot, threatens to shut all land borders over rice smuggling
- Chief Audu Ogbeh, the minister of Agriculture, said the importation of rice reduced from 580,000 tonnes in 2015 to 58,000 tonnes by 2016
- He said the federal government was working to ensure self-sufficiency in the next two years of its existence
The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has threatened to shut some land borders if the smuggling of rice continues from neighbouring countries.
The threat came from the minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, who spoke on Monday in Abuja on the achievements of the administration in the last two years.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ogbeh said the decision became necessary to encourage local rice farmers and to enable the country achieve self sufficiency in rice by 2018.
Audu Ogbeh said the government was focused as he reeled out the administration's achievements
He said: “We believe they are determined to sabotage the efforts that we are making to guarantee self-sufficiency in rice and to save foreign exchange which we don’t have.
“They insist on bringing in rice through the land borders, avoiding the duties and the levies we put on them and they are definitely bent on sabotaging our efforts and we are getting increasingly unhappy with them.
“And I must say that very soon, if they persist, we will take very nasty measures against them.
“We will like to advise our neighbours who believe that the ECOWAS Treaty means that Nigeria is a volunteer nation for economic suicide.
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“We have no such plans — destroying our own economy to make any neighbour happy.
“The ECOWAS Treaty number two does not suggest that any country can be an avenue of smuggling foreign goods not produced in that country for dumping in his neighbour’s territory.
“If they insist, I do not think that government is far away from considering permanently closing certain borders very near us and when we do, nothing will make us change our minds on the issue, ECOWAS Treaty or not.’’
Some states have now taken to rice farming
Ogbeh said the importation of rice reduced from 580,000 tonnes in 2015 to 58,000 tonnes by 2016.
He added that by the end of this year, the country would eliminate the difference because more people are growing rice in the country.
The minister said the government would distribute at least 200 rice mills to millers across the states to encourage fresh milling of locally produced rice in order to make them more palatable than the imported ones.
According to him, this would save about $5 million for the country daily when achieved.
“About three months ago, there was this cry about Nigeria going to starve and we told them that there will be such thing.
“We have never produced as much grains as we did in the last two years in this country’s history.
“We have fed not only Nigeria, we have fed West Africa and there are still thousands of tonnes in people’s warehouses.
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“Those who bought grains and stored believing that starvation was near and they would make a killing are now begging us to take off the grains from them because they are getting stuck.
“The only shortfall we have is maize because of the disease called the armyworm.
“We are dealing with that and this planting season, we are going to support farmers to make sure that we bring that disease under control.
“We have done amazing things in agriculture in two years, we are still going strong,’’ Ogbeh said adding that the government was working towards achieving self-sufficiency in staples within the next two years, excluding wheat.
According to him, Nigeria should be able to earn between N10 billion to N30 billion from exportation of agricultural produce annually in the next five years to service the country’s debts and build a robust foreign reserves.
Meanwhile, NAIJ.com reports that Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's minister of Information and Culture, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has fulfilled its campaign promises to Nigerians despite dwindling revenue.
Alhaji Mohammed made the pronouncement at the Presentation of National Social Investment Programmes (N-SIP) Report Card event to mark the second anniversary of President Buhari’s administration in Abuja on Monday, May 29.
The theme of the report card presentation, according to the News Agency of Nigeria, was 'Showcasing the Achievements of National Social Investment Programmes: A Smile for Every Nigerian'.
Watch this video as minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, summarises Buhari's achievements in the last two years: