”We must eat what we produce”- President Buhari Orders CBN not to give money to food importers
President Buhari has once again instructed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) not to provide foreign exchange for the importation of food items.
The President gave the directive at the fifth regular meeting with the presidential economic advisory council that held at the statehouse in Abuja today December 29.
A statement released by Garba Shehu, the president’s senior special assistant on media and publicity, quoted President Buhari as saying Nigerians must eat what is produced here.
“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. 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
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 said
This is the third time that the President would issue CBN the directive not to give food importers foreign exchange. The first time was in August 2019 and again in September 2020.
What are you producing that you want to eat, this your policies are killing this country, please resign oga
This man and his useless acts….. Only God can save us from you….
Yes this is a nice order from the president but the truth of the matter is that the government is not in any way helping matters
There are many people interested in producing most of these agricultural good items but the government is not helping them to carry on
Government also need to do something on the security issues, what is the essence of planting crops for so many months and you will just wake up on the following day and find out that it has been consumed by cattle, what do you expect farmers to do about that.
Are you also eating from Nigeria farm produce or you are just deceiving us with that statement, security is Paramount to Nigerians without that nothing can be done.
You shouldn’t stop only on this issue of agriculture, you should extend it to all those things we are manufacturing in the country not only agricultural products.
If government determine to boost agricultural products they should go to rural area and provide money and equipment they need for them rather than giving money to politicians that are not producing anything.
Look at this stupid man please help me ask this man what do we have or what are we producing that we should eat? It’s good to make use of what we have if at least we have something, but we have nothing to proud on.