BLAME SHAGARI’S ADMINISTRATION FOR RICE IMPORTATION —OBASANJO
BLAME SHAGARI’S ADMINISTRATION FOR
RICE IMPORTATION —OBASANJO
Former President Shehu Shagari and former President
Olusegun Obasanjo
Former President, Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo, has said that the administration of fomer president, Alhaji Shehu
Shagari, should be blamed for the importation of rice into the country.
He said the country would have been
self sufficient in rice production if the then government had not scuttled the
agricultural revolution initiated by his regime in the military era.
Obasanjo said this at the unveiling
of Okun Rice held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta,on
Thursday, blaming the development on inconsistency in governement policies
He explained that the setting up of a
committee on importation of rice by the Shagari -led government forced the
local rice producers in the country to abandoned rice cultivation as imported
rice arrived the country.
The former president commended the
brain behind the rice production, Biodun Onalaja, for the ray of hope in
boosting rice production to achieve food suffiency.
He said, “One of our problems in this
country is inconsistency in policy.
In 1979, we were getting to a place
where we would be self sufficient in rice production, but then a new
administration came and set up a Presidential Committee on rice
importation instead of a Presidential Committee on Exportation of rice.
“In no time, when the imported rice started
a arriving, those farmers who were cultivating rice gave up.
” Today I commend Hyst Global
Business Limited and the chairman, Mr. Biodun Onalaja, for his doggedness,
persistence, and stubbornness. It is not easy to succeed here as a farmer. But
I want to say Onalaja is a success story, because despite the odds he never
gave up.”
