High Cost of food: Buhari orders Minister of Agriculture to stop hoarding activities

– Says new dams completed’ll boost food production

As Nigeria marks 61 years of independence from colonial rule, President Muhammadu Buhari, Friday, following high cost of food across the country ordered the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Mohammed Abubakar, to stop all hoarding activities.

Buhari gave the order in his independence broadcast, while appraising his administration’s effort to boost the nation’s agricultural sector.

He said: “As we continue to optimise and enhance our oil and gas sector, I am also proud and delighted to state that our economic diversification strategy remains on course with the persistent increase in Non-Oil Sector contribution to GDP.

“We recovered from economic recession in quarter four of 2020 with a GDP growth rate of 0.11%, and grew by 0.51% and 5.01% in real terms in the first and second quarters of 2021.

“The Agricultural sector remains key to our economic diversification efforts as the sector has been a consistent driver of the non-oil sector contributing 22.35% and 23.78% to the overall GDP in the first and second quarter of 2021.

“We have seen significant private sector investments in almost all areas of the agricultural value chain. And these have continued even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Unfortunately, as our food production capacity has increased, food prices have been going up due to artificial shortages created by middlemen who have been buying and hoarding these essential commodities for profiteering.

“To address this, I am hereby directing the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to rehabilitate the National Food Reserve Agency and also work with security agencies, the Nigerian Commodity Exchange, and the National Assembly to find a lasting solution to these disruptive and unpatriotic hoarding activities.”

However, the President also made it known that several dams have been completed and ready to boost food production as most of the River Basins Development Authorities are undergoing rehabilitation.

“To further enhance food production, we have completed several new dams and are in the process of rehabilitating several River Basin Development Authorities to enhance ground water supply for rain-fed agriculture as well as surface water for irrigation agriculture.

“The water projects we completed between 2015-2020, have improved Nigerian’s access to potable water to 71% between 2015 and 2020. This means 12.5 million additional Nigerians now have direct access to potable water”, he said.

Gabriel Ewepu, Vanguard News