The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh has said Nigerian businessmen demanded 2.5 billion dollars (about N492 billion) a week for importation of goods and services into the country.
Ogbeh said the ministry was willing to support local investors with capacity to produce goods and save the country’s foreign exchange. He said the consumption of rice in the country was rising and that a lot of people were not aware that the rice had some degree of arsenic.
He stated that consuming rice in large quantity on a regular basis was a bit of health risk, adding that substituting it with potato would be better.
“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.
Ogbeh said that any private sector effort that would develop local production of goods would be fully supported by the ministry. “We should aggressively take the West African market; there is no reason why we should allow Irish potato from Ireland and France and Belgium into West Africa; it is the same story with onions,” he lamented.
