President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday assured that the government would work hard towards ensuring that the country has enough food to feed its citizenry.
To that effect, the President said that the administration will keep a keen eye on food inflation in the New Year and reiterated his initial directive to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), not to give any money for food importation.
President Buhari stated this at the fifth regular meeting with the Presidential Economic Advisory Council held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He directed the CBN not to give money to import food. “Already about seven states are producing all the rice we need. We must eat what we produce,” he said.
In taking note of the strides made in agricultural production following the programme of diversification from over reliance on oil instituted by his administration, President Buhari wondered where the country would have found itself by now in view of the devastating economic crisis brought about by COVID-19 if the country had not embraced agriculture.
READ ALSO: Who is squeezing Bakare’s balls? By Femi Fani-Kayode
President Buhari in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu said, “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.”
-Advertisement-
He emphasized the place of agriculture in the efforts to restore the economy but agreed that measures must be put in place to curtail inflation in the country.
He said, “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 emphasised 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.
We do everything possible to supply quality news and information to all our valuable readers day in, day out and we are committed to keep doing this.
Your kind donation will help our continuous research efforts.
-Advertisement-
-Want to get the news as it breaks?-
