Border Closure Favours Nigerian Farmers, Says President Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed delight over how he said the two-year land border closure has benefitted local farmers in the country.

The President made the comment on Friday in Daura while speaking to the elected Local Government Council chairmen from Katsina State.

He commended the nation’s farmers for the record production of rice and other food commodities and expressed satisfaction that the agricultural policies of the administration were working to good effect.

“I have a good understanding of the country and its people.

"That is why we instituted those agricultural policies.

"I said we must grow what we eat and eat what we grow.

“This is a country that was once dependent on foreign rice.

"We closed the border to foreign rice. I said why can’t we eat Nigerian rice, and with the policies put in place, Nigerians are eating home grown rice,” he said in a statement issued by his spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu.

Buhari also played up the successful implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), saying money had been saved from unscrupulous government officials.

“I found a tough man (Hamid Ali) for the job at the Customs.

"One day, he came to me and said that they had intercepted 20 fuel tankers about to cross the border.

"I said to him sell the fuel and the tankers and put the money in TSA.

"Before this time, that money would have found its way to the numerous mysterious ‘government’ accounts.”

On the suggestion by Ya’u Umar Gojo-Gojo, the Commissioner of Local Governments and Chieftaincy Affairs, who led the council chairmen that the agricultural policies of the administration be made into law to ensure continuity under the all incoming administrations, Buhari said such good policies will commend themselves to any government.

Gojo-Gojo commended the President for initiating several measures to transform agriculture in order to increase farmers’ income during the last seven years.

He told the President that before this time, Katsina people knew how to eat rice but had no inkling as to grow and process it.

The Commissioner also briefed the President about the security situation in the state, saying that the state’s amended security law had brought everyone into the mix- state government, local governments, traditional rulers and the ordinary citizens with each one playing their part in helping to reduce the worrisome security threats facing the state.