PRESIDENTIAL ORDER TO CBN ON NO FOREX FOR FOOD IMPORT – LOOMING FOOD CRISIS IN NIGERIA.
According to Sheryl Sandberg "The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have". Leadership in another strict sense of perception and understanding, is the ability to listen to be sensitive and to prescribe effective solutions to desires of your followers. It is heart breaking and quite unfortunate that Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) has continuously failed to listen to the voice of Nigerian masses and has remained adamant owing to his glaring lack of basic understanding of the economic dynamics of global trade and investment.
The recent order by the President to the nation's Apex bank, The Central #Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to halt the provision of foreign exchange for food importation is yet another bad decision by PMB with the potential to elicit an acute food crisis.
As the World 7th most populous nation with a population of about 200million and a grossly insufficient, ineffective and inefficient food production and storage facilities with no policy direction or plan in place to scale up and locally meet soaring demands in the nearest possible future, such an order is quite laughable as it is at best, a poorly thought out policy and at worse an insensitive order devoid of rational reasoning.
Quality leadership demands proper consultation with the people, taking the right decisions at the right time for the benefit of the people. A president who means well for his people and has the intent of reaching sufficient internal food production and security must start by building agricultural facilities, providing loans and incentives to the farmers and developing vast areas of arable lands specifically for sustainable agricultural production. Without such plans and strategy being put in place, without a clear master plan and policy direction indicating the long term plan for self sufficiency and sustainability, an abrupt ban on forex for food importation which presently is necessary for food sufficiency, will only result in a devastating food crisis for the nation.
The President is hereby called upon to immediately revert this order as it portends great danger to food security and sufficiency for the already impoverished greater percentage of the people of Nigeria.
Nigeria Central Bank of Nigeria HQ World Economic Forum Agricultural Society of Nigeria UNESCO
