Shoro Niyen? Nigerians too dey eat too much of rice, na wetin make rice dey expensive ~ Audu Ogbeh

The Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, on Wednesday in Abuja talk sey  Nigerian businessmen demanded 2.5 billion dollars (about N492 billion) a week for importation of goods and services into the country.

Ogbeh yarn  this matter  in a meeting with officials of VICAMPRO, an indigenous Agro Company investing in production of Irish Potato on Wednesday in Abuja.

He talk sey   the ministry was willing to support local investors with capacity to take produce goods and save the country’s foreign exchange.

He talk sey   the consumption of rice in the country dey go up and that a lot of people were not aware that the rice had some degree of arsenic.

The minister said that consuming rice in large quantity on a regular basis was a bit of health risk, adding that substituting it with potato would be welcomed development.

“The volume of importation of virtually everything into this country is too much.

“The demand for dollars in this country as at today is 2.5 billion a week; this is the quantum of dollars Nigerians are asking for to import things.

“Since 1986, we began this habit of importing everything and doing virtually nothing at home to sustain ourselves; now, we do not have the dollars and people are very hungry.

“This day was coming anyway, no matter who was in power; we have the most ridiculous method of devaluing our currency; every week, we auction the dollar and naira goes up.

“We sat and were hoping that by devaluation, we are going to arrive at Eldorado; if we continue like this, it will be a thousand naira to a dollar,’’ he said.

While comment  the investor, Ogbeh said that any private sector effort that would develop local production of goods would be fully supported by the ministry