President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday spoke on the rising food prices in the country ahead of the Eid El-Adha.
In his message marking the auspicious Muslim occasion, the president restated the determination of his administration to create a just, harmonious and prosperous country in which the safety of life and property is assured.
Reflecting on current challenges facing the country, the president stated that “COVID-19 pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the economies of all countries, including Nigeria, in addition to the fact that floods have caused large scale destruction to agricultural farmlands, thereby impacting negatively on our efforts to boost local production in line with our policy to drastically reduce food importation.”
This, he explained, has led to food inflation which the government is working hard to address.
According to Buhari, “No government in our recent history has invested as heavily as we are doing to promote local production of about 20 other commodities, through the provision of loans and several other forms of support to our farmers.”
He continued, “Apart from the destruction caused to rice farms by floods, middlemen have also taken advantage of the local rice production to exploit fellow Nigerians, thereby undermining our goal of supporting local food production at affordable prices.
“As an elected president who enjoys the goodwill of the ordinary people that gave us their mandate, let me assure you that we are continuing with measures to bring relief to Nigerians, including making fertilizer available at affordable prices to our farmers.”
On the country’s security challenges, he said, “We have started taking delivery of fighter aircraft and other necessary military equipment and hardware to improve the capacity of our security forces to confront terrorism and banditry.”
Speaking on the significance of the Eid El-Kabir celebration, the president appealed to Muslims “to demonstrate the good virtues of Islam through personal examples and practices.”
