A large-scale rice farmer in northern Nigeria has backed the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria to lift the Forex ban on the importation of rice.
He said the lifting of the Forex ban will break the monopoly of the processing and marketing of the grain by local millers.
Alhaji Hassan Yaro, who grows rice in Kano, Jigawa and Borno states, is the Chairman of the Kano Council of Traders and Entrepreneurs.
“I could remember, rice millers reached an agreement with the then President Buhari in Africa House, Kano, when he was campaigning for re-election, to process enough of the grain for the country at an affordable price,” he alleging, “They even received a huge amount of money from the CBN to ensure this.”
Yaro stated, “For whatever reason known, perhaps, only to the local millers, the grain, instead of flooding the markets at prices affordable to the ordinary Nigerian, went beyond the reach of most Nigerians in terms of both availability and affordability up to last week when the Forex ban was lifted.”
Alleging that most rice millers do not mean well for the country, he vowed to mobilise as many farmers of the grain as he can across the country to upscale the traditional milling method and pursue wavers for the importation of affordable milling machines from China, should the local millers attempt sabotaging the Tinubu administration on this.
