By Olamide Francis
President Muhammadu Buhari has reiterated his administration’s commitment to check inflated prices of foodstuffs has bedeviled the country’s economy, Nature News gathered.
The president gave this assurance at a virtual meeting of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), assuring the council of his administration’s readiness to monitor the persistent general rise in the prices of food commodities in 2021 with a view to bringing them down.
A statement by presidential spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, also quoted the president as reiterating his directive to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) not to grant any foreign exchange for the importation of food items. This is the third time the president would issue the directive; first in August 2919 and again in September.
Recent data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had shown that Nigeria’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation, increased by 14.89 per cent (year-on-year) in November compared to 14.23 per cent in the preceding month.
The report showed that the composite food index, which accounts for more than half of the country’s inflation basket, had risen sharply by 18.30 per cent in the review period compared to 17.38 per cent in October.
The NBS had said the rise in the food index was caused by increases in prices of bread and cereals, potatoes, yam and other tubers, meat, fish, fruits, vegetables and oils and fats. Food inflation has been in double digits for more than three years.
Buhari also spoke on what he described as the strides made in agricultural production following the programme of diversification by his administration to check Nigeria’s over-reliance on oil revenue.
He wondered what would have been the state of the country in view of the devastating economic crisis caused by COVID-19 if the country had not embraced agriculture.
He restated the place of agriculture in the overall efforts to restore the economy, observing that measures must be put in place to curtail inflation in the country.
He 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. 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.
“Already, about seven states are producing all the rice we need. We must eat what we produce.”
The meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari and attended by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, reviewed the state of both the global economy and the domestic economy in the outgoing year.
