The President, Muhammadu Buhari, on Thursday, directed the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, not to release money for food and fertilizer importation henceforth.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, who disclosed this in a statement titled, “Don’t give a kobo for food, fertilizers imports, President Buhari directs CBN,” said Buhari stated that firms that were bent on importing food should source their foreign exchange elsewhere.
Shehu said Buhari gave the directive at a meeting of the National Food Security Council at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
But the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, in its reaction, warned that the directive could cause further inflation, saying the country was not sufficient in food production.
In a circular in 2015, the Central Bank of Nigeria listed 41 goods and services as items not valid for foreign exchange in the Nigerian foreign exchange market, and had gradually increased the number to 44.
On Thursday, Shehu quoted Buhari as restating his earlier verbal directive to the apex bank, saying he would pass it down in writing that ‘’nobody importing food should be given money.’’
The statement quoted Buhari as saying, ‘’From only three operating in the country, we have 33 fertilizer blending plants now working.
“We will not pay a kobo of our foreign reserves to import fertilizer. We will empower local producers.’’
Shehu said Buhari also directed that blenders of fertilizer should convey products directly to state governments so as to skip the cartel of transporters undermining the efforts to successfully deliver the products to users at reasonable costs.
The President, he said, advised private businesses bent on food importation to source their foreign exchange independently, saying, “use your money to compete with our farmers’’, instead of using foreign reserves to bring in compromised food items to divest the efforts of our farmers.
“We have a lot of able-bodied young people willing to work and agriculture is the answer. We have a lot to do to support our farmers,’’ Buhari added.
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