It’s a shame Nigeria spent N155bn on rice importation – Obasanjo

Posted by admin Latest Politics Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday described as ‘shameful,’ the N155bn Nigeria spends annually on rice importation.

Obasanjo, in a keynote address he delivered at the International Conference on Information Communication Technology for Africa 2011 at the Bells University, Ota, Ogun State, said importation of food by Nigeria was condemnable in view of its vast arable land.

“About a week ago, I read that the country imported N155bn worth of rice which is more than investing $1bn on rice. In a country of over 100 million people and with the kind of arable land we have, where there is nowhere we cannot plant rice, it is shameful to invest such an amount of money on rice importation,” he lamented.

Obasanjo, who was Nigeria’s President from 1999 to 2007, warned that if government continued to import food with oil money, Nigeria and even its future generations would be impoverished.

He said, “If we take all our money from oil to import food, then we are impoverishing the nation, our children and children yet unborn.

“We have arable land, but we should know that the land will not grow food no matter how fertile it is except we prepare the land to grow food. If we don’t till the arable land will only produce weeds.”

The former President, who is also a farmer, stressed that the nation’s growing population had become a curse instead of a blessing.

He noted that there was a disconnection between food production and the nation’s population.

“The population keeps on increasing but the people on the farms are reducing,” Obasanjo said, advising the government on the need to make agriculture attractive by giving necessary incentives to farmers.

The former President said, “Nobody is too old, too educated, too sophisticated to go into farming and there is no gender issue in farming.”

On the problems confronting the agricultural sector, Obasanjo stated the need for a solution to be found in the areas of finance.

Describing funds needed in the sector as ‘time-bound’, he said that processing, storage and marketing were some of the problems confronting agricultural development in the country.

He said that the country had been lucky among African nations to have two out of the five largest rivers in Africa- River Niger and River Benue.

Obasanjo, who regretted that the nation had not taken adequate advantage of the two rivers, also observed that there was poor management of water for food production.

The former President said,“If we have to depend solely on rainfall for agriculture, we will constantly have problems as there will always be failure particularly with climatic changes.”

He stressed the need for the nation to ensure the application of the ICT in tackling food scarcity.

The Chairman of the occasion, Chief Femi Olopade, in his remark, lamented that 43 African nations were among the 86 countries in the world identified as of low income and food insecure.

He said that food insecurity had become a problem confronting the nation and other countries across the world.

-Punchwp_posts