MINISTER of Information, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, has raised the alarm that expired rice meant for animals is
being exposed to Nigerians to consume in their countries of origin.
Speaking
with journalists in his Oro country home on Tuesday, the minister
blamed the development on smuggling pointing out that if the affected
rice had been put under scrutiny they would have failed NAFDAC test
because most of them have been on the shelf more than six years and had
expired.
“The rice being imported now are not fit for consumption in their countries of origin.
They
are also being subsidised and sent here even in credit because those
people know that they are unfit for consumption; they are only fit for
animals.
“Imported rice are mostly smuggled into the country
because they cannot pass NAFDAC test. No Nigerian rice is more than one
year old but the imported ones have spent even six years in their
countries”, he said.
But he promised by in the next one and half
years Nigeria will become self-sufficient in rice production given the
commitment of the administration to agriculture.
“In the area of
agriculture, it has been a huge revolution. Let’s take one of our
national staples, such as rice, as an example. When we came in, there
were 5 million rice farmers.
Today, we have in excess of 11
million rice farmers. Our rice import has been cut by over 80 per cent.
These didn’t happen by accident. It was a result of our Anchor Borrowers
Programme. There are more millionaire farmers today than at any other
time in the history of our nation.
Today, Nigeria is close to achieving self-sufficiency in rice than at any other time in the history of our country.
“This
Administration has employed 500,000 unemployed graduates under its
Social Intervention Programme (SIP). No government in our country’s
history has ever done that.
This Administration has been daily
feeding 8.5 million school children in 23 states. That has never been
done before in Nigeria.
This Administration has been proving 10,000
Naira every two months to over 300,000 families as social security for
the most vulnerable. This has never been done before in Nigeria.
This
Administration, realising that SMEs are the biggest employers of
labour, has been growing such enterprises at an astronomical rate
through its Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme. This is
unprecedented”, he said.
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