Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, on Thursday, warned that the country must rely less on importation of food if it was desirous of making progress on the economic front.
Receiving representatives of Stallion Group, who were on a courtesy visit to the Government House, Benin, the governor said importation of food by the country could not be defended.
He said, “I am not particularly excited about the importation of rice. For me, Nigeria has no business importing rice. If I have the powers, I will prohibit rice importation. A nation’s consumption should reflect its ability, and Nigeria importing food cannot be defended. We have the capacity to produce enough rice not only for our own consumption, but also for export.
“The appropriate policy should be one that induces people like your group to produce here rather than import rice. It does not require much effort to import, and in terms of our long term development strategy, we must move away from import-based to production-based economy and create jobs for our people.
“I will be more excited discussing further how you can be involved in the production, rather than providing incentives for you to import more rice. We must review these policies as they apply to importation.
“I am also not too happy with the Federal Government granting waivers for people to bring vegetable oil and other forms of oil when we have enough local capacity. If the price of any commodity is attractive because you prohibit cheap imports, those who want to make money will go into production. That is the only way we are going to create jobs.
“Every day that we are encouraging importation, we are killing jobs, exporting employment, importing unemployment and the concomitant poverty that goes with it.”
The governor said the state government was ready to give incentive to Stallion Group towards establishment of oil palm farms in Edo.