President Muhammadu Buhari has declared the Administration’s Anchors
\nBorrowers’ Programme a huge success, saying 12.2 million farmers have
\njoined the rice and wheat revolution while the country is moving close
\nto self- sufficiency in major grains.
\nThe President, who was represented by the Minister of Information and
\nCulture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, spoke at the 25th Edition of the Nigeria
\nMedia Merit Award (NMMA) Ceremony in Lagos on Wednesday.
\nHe said the success of the agriculture revolution has turned thousands
\nof rice farmers into millionaires and drastically reduced rice import.
\n”Apart from the successes we have achieved in tackling insecurity and
\nfighting corruption, perhaps our most remarkable progress has been in
\nthe area of agriculture. Quietly but steadily, our agriculture
\nrevolution is bearing fruits.
\n”According to the Rice Exporters of Thailand, rice imports from
\nThailand fell from 644,131 tons in Sept 2015 to 20,000 tons in Sept. 2017, representing a 95% drop,” President Buhari said, noting that self-sufficiency in rice is so important because it is the most widely consumed staple in Nigeria, and also because Nigeria’s daily expenditure on rice for over three decades stood at $5 million a day!
\nHe said Nigeria is also doing well in Millet, Sorghum and Maize
\ncultivation, adding: ”We are now the second largest producer of
\nsorghum after the US, the third in millet after India and our
\nbreweries are now enjoying local sourcing of those commodities. For
\nmaize, we are producing 10 million tons while we need about 13 million
\ntons for both human and animal nutrition.”
\nThe President said Nigeria leads the world in the yam and cassava
\nproduction and that efforts are being made to restore and improve on
\nthe country’s ranking in cocoa production, where it has fallen from
\n2nd to 7th position.
\n”We are also investing in a new line of tree crops targeting local and foreign end users and certain to earn foreign exchange. These are shea butter, palm trees, coconut, mangoes, bananas and plantains, kenaf and sisal hemp, castor and pineapple, among others. Overall, our ambition is that agriculture should rise from 25% to 40% of GDP so that we can banish poverty and overcome our economic anxiety,” he said.
\nPresident Buhari hailed the NMMA, which he called the preeminent media
\nexcellence award, and said the Nigeria media has done well over the
\nyears hence it deserves to be celebrated.
\nHe, however, urged the media not to allow those who brought Nigeria to
\na sorry pass to muddle the waters by creating their own narrative
\nwhich is far from reality
\n”This is important because there seems to be a feeling of numbness
\namong the citizens about the conduct of those whose actions brought us here. Suddenly, these same people are engaging in revisionist history and blaming those who are working themselves to the bone to correct the misdeeds of the past. They are blaming everyone but themselves for the mess they threw the country into,” the President said.
\nHe said those who mismanaged the country have shown no contrition, no apologies, no shame, but instead have engaged in sheer bravado, unbridled arrogance and revisionism, adding: ”The media owes it aduty not to allow Nigerians to forget, to say ‘Never Again’ to those who view Nigeria as nothing but a cash cow to be milked to death.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Muhammadu Buhari has declared the Administration’s Anchors Borrowers’ Programme a huge success, saying 12.2 million farmers have joined the rice and wheat revolution while the country is moving close to self- sufficiency in major grains. The President, who was represented by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, spoke at the 25th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jobs","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}