Deji Elumoye in Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday expressed concerns over the penchant of certain groups of people to sabotage efforts of the federal government to make life meaningful to Nigerians.
A statement issued by the Presidential spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina said the President flayed the situation in which “some unscrupulous people try to undermine every policy of government, irrespective of the good it was meant to achieve for the country.”
According to Adesina, the President, who spoke while receiving briefings from the Professor Doyin Salami-led Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), during its 6th regular meeting, held in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, recalled that despite efforts to regulate importation and proliferation of some commodities in the country by shutting land borders for more than a year, some Nigerians still found ways to circumvent the barriers to perpetuate smuggling of illicit commodities.
He said: “Some people are merciless against this country. We closed the borders to control the smuggling of petroleum products, and check the influx of smuggled goods, arms and ammunition. That was when the Comptroller General of Customs called me, saying 40 tankers laden with petrol had been impounded. I told him to sell the fuel, sell the trucks, and put the money in the treasury.
“They still brought arms and ammunition into the country, brought in rice in vehicles and motorcycles. I said shoot anyone found illegally with AK-47, yet they haven’t stopped. People must show consideration for their own country”.
The President who pleaded with Nigerians to be considerate towards the country especially with the current administration’s move to develop the nation, also assured that the federal government would focus on greater development of irrigation facilities in the country and encourage more people into agriculture.
Agriculture, he noted, is a good way for the country to overcome economic challenges confronting it, adding, “We need to go back to the land. Technology is doing away with petroleum, but we are lucky we have other resources; Gas, vast arable land, which we are not using enough.”
President Buhari was responding to disclosure by Salami, in his presentation, that only 2% of land under cultivation is irrigated, recommending that apart from government efforts, incentives are needed for private people to enter the sector.
On security challenges, which PEAC said was having great repercussions on the economy, the President charged leadership at every level to go back to the basics, noting that a bottom-up approach was necessary, from ward, to local council, states, and federal.
Earlier in its presentation PEAC stressed that the global economy had continued to improve as COVID infections drop and roll-out of vaccination intensifies, adding that the Nigerian economy, though out of recession, remains fragile with inflation rising, unemployment high, and external account weak.
Policy, the economic advisory body said, “must urgently address the challenges of rising prices.”
Among other issues recommended by PEAC are decisive end to all forms of insecurity in the country, mobilization of resources for investment, hastened implementation of agricultural reform policies, passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) as a basis for revitalizing the industry, poverty reduction, employment generation, and incentives for private investment in irrigation, to promote all-year-round farming.
