ABUJA: The Federal Government yesterday bemoaned Nigeria’s over dependence on imports for its daily needs including food items. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh said it was ridiculous that the country spends over $18m annually on importation of tooth picks.
Asked how he arrived at the figure, he said it was from a recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) report, stressing that it was pathetic that Nigeria was spending its hard earned resources on non-essential items. The Minister reeled out some scary statistics on the nation’s food import situation for example; where over 7 million tons of rice consumed annually in the country were imported from Thailand, India and Vietnam.
Ogbeh said: “We depended on Thailand, India and Vietnam to feed us with rice, we depend on other countries to feed us with tomato paste; we depend on others even for tooth picks at the cost of 18 million dollars per annum. We depend on Brazil for sugar; and we also depend even now on other countries for pepper and so on. We import 5million eggs per a day from South Africa. We bring sliced potatoes from South Africa. We spend $600 hundred million in importing fish a year. There’s no reason why we can’t grow our fish here.
