Nigeria may be on brink of famine?
It's a pure lie, how can they expect us to believe that, when the President banned importation of rice and other commodities not made in Nigeria.
The items include the following:
1. Rice
2. Cement
3. Margarine
4. Palm kernel/Palm oil products/vegetables oils
5. Meat and processed meat products
6. Vegetables and processed vegetable products
7. Poultry chicken, eggs, turkey
8. Private airplanes/jets
9. Indian incense
10. Tinned fish in sauce(Geisha)/sardines
11. Cold rolled steel sheets
12. Galvanized steel sheets
13. Roofing sheets
14. Wheelbarrows
15. Head pans
16. Metal boxes and containers
17. Enamelware
18. Steel drums
19. Steel pipes
20. Wire rods(deformed and not deformed)
21. Iron rods and reinforcing bard
22. Wire mesh
23. Steel nails
24. Security and razor wine
25. Wood particle boards and panels
26. Wood Fibre Boards and Panels
27. Plywood boards and panels
28. Wooden doors
29. Toothpicks
30. Glass and Glassware
31. Kitchen utensils
32. Tableware
33. Tiles-vitrified and ceramic
34. Textiles
35. Woven fabrics
36. Clothes
37. Plastic and rubber products, polypropylene granules , cellophane wrappers
38. Soap and cosmetics
39. Tomatoes/tomato pastes
40. Eurobond/foreign currency bond/ share purchases
Note: These items are not prohibited or banned. It only means that importers of these items are no longer qualified to get foreign exchange from the CBN or the official market to buy these items from overseas.
This thus reduces by over 60% the amount of imported goods in the market, with the dollar floating, and lack of exchange support from CBN. And results in a dip in availability of food. Even in peaceful areas.
39,10,7,6,5,4,3,1 representing 20% of commodities declared unsupported by CBN are edible. The President's intent may be well meaning and may go beyond victimizing the the Igbo importers and business men.
In a country where agriculture has been abandoned for over two or three decades, and agricultural produce not enough for producing areas, how the President expects the entire nation to feed, may have to be a story told by economical statistician.
Recently UN was blamed for the starvation in the Boko Haram infested area of Nigeria, since it couldn't aid them early enough. And the Nigerian government taking no blame, is a high level of irresponsibility. The welfare of a people is primarily the government's, external bodies are secondary and can and should never be blamed solely if things turn out wrong. Nigerian government can only blame herself, imagine a government made up of 90% Northerns, blaming international bodies for not coming to rescue the North, is another height of the Buhari regime blame game. Nigeria needs to understand that before decisions are taken, proper research needs to be done, since the arrival of Buhari, hasty decisions has been the call of duty and the effects are bound to be felt. Why place exchange embargo on food importation, when you do not have enough?
Away from the North, no one seems to regard other areas of concern in Nigeria. Everyone has heard the situation of the Northern 7 years war, the government is screaming for help from international bodies, but how many times has it sang of over 30 years Niger Delta oil spill that left the soil, rivers and people unproductive. The East are brutalized and murdered on daily count and it doesn't seem to move anyone. No part of the government has ever cried out, yet this areas account for 60% if not 80% of national income.
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