President Buhari has today 1st, October disclosed that middlemen are responsible for the costliness of food in Nigeria.
Buhari made the disclosure today, 1st of October that Nigeria celebrates her 61st Independence Anniversary.
Candidly, Nigeria’s inflation rate has fallen, yet, food cost ceased to lessen thereby causing hardship which permeates every nook and cranny of the country.
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In the meantime, some aggrieved citizens today, took to the street of Abuja to protest against Buhari’s administration but were chased away by the alert armed policemen.
The protesters chanting ‘Buhari Must Go’ gave their grudges to include, rise in insecurity across the country and constant rise in the price of stable food.
The foregoing perhaps, the reason for address of the issue of price of food that goes high consistently.
The President who specifically pointed out middlemen the one to blame said they created “artificial shortages” through hoarding of food to their own personal gain.
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The Number 1 citizen of Nigeria has therefore, ordained Mohammed Sabo Nanono, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development to stop all hoarding activities.
The ministry is to execute the task in collaboration of other agencies.
The Nigerian leader amid evaluation of his administration’s effort to promote the nation’s agricultural sector gave such directive in his independence broadcast.
Mr President also revealed that several new dams have been completed while several River Basin Development Authorities are under rehabilitation with a view to increasing production of food.
Buhari said: “…. 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.”
He added:“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.”
