{"id":4576,"date":"2019-08-15T10:10:53","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T07:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=4576"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:28","slug":"nigerias-president-moves-to-stop-funding-for-food-imports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/08\/15\/nigerias-president-moves-to-stop-funding-for-food-imports\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria&#8217;s President Moves To Stop Funding For Food Imports"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>By Aisha Salaudeen<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nigerian President\nMuhammadu Buhari has instructed the country&#8217;s central bank to stop providing foreign\ncurrency for food imports, according to a statement from his spokesman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said\nTuesday the move is aimed at improving Nigeria&#8217;s agricultural production and\nattaining more food security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The president &#8230; said the foreign\nreserve will be conserved and utilized strictly for diversification of the\neconomy, and not for encouraging more dependence on foreign food imports\nbills,&#8221; reads the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shehu also quoted Buhari as saying,\n&#8220;Don&#8217;t give a cent to anybody to import food into the country.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A focus on local food production<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nigeria is currently&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/beta\/international\/analysis.php?iso=NGA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Africa&#8217;s largest\nproducer of oil<\/a>&nbsp;and relies on\nthe sale of crude oil for about 90% of its foreign-exchange earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a way of diversifying the country&#8217;s economy\nand reducing its dependence on oil, policies aimed at stimulating the growth of\nthe agricultural sector have been put forward over the past years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MBuhari\/status\/1161596692241813504?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">statement<\/a>&nbsp;from President Buhari&#8217;s official account\nalso says boosting agriculture is a primary focus of the current\nadministration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2015, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) presided over a ban on the access to foreign currency for <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.export.gov\/article?id=Nigeria-Prohibited-and-Restricted-Imports\" target=\"_blank\">41 items<\/a>\u00a0that the bank felt could be manufactured in the country, including rice and poultry. In July, it announced that it would\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/guardian.ng\/news\/cbn-to-ban-1-2b-yearly-forex-for-milk-other-dairy-products\/\" target=\"_blank\">stop importers of milk and other dairy products<\/a>\u00a0from getting foreign currency, arguing that local production of milk should be encouraged instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the National Bureau of\nStatistics, imports of agricultural products were&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/nigerianstat.gov.ng\/elibrary?queries%5bsearch%5d=trade\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">valued<\/a>&nbsp;at \u20a6236 billion (about $640 million) in\nthe first quarter of 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These policies are expected to reduce how much\nis spent on imports and encourage local production of goods\u2026<a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2019\/08\/14\/africa\/nigeria-to-stop-food-import-intl\/index.html\">Read more&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Aisha Salaudeen Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has instructed the country&#8217;s central bank to stop providing foreign currency for food imports, according to a statement from his spokesman. Presidential spokesman&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}