Why I don't want the price of rice to come down - Yusuff

The lawmaker representing one of the constituencies of Alimosho at the Lagos state House of Assembly, Bisi Yusuff, says only Nigerians have solutions to the current economic challenges facing the country. In this interview with Eromosele Ebhomele and other selected journalists, he speaks on President Muhammadu Buhari’s change agenda and advised the president on his next line of action

Muhammadu Buhari: Yusuff said the president has achieved a lot within a short time in offi

Bisi Yusuff explained why he does not want the price of rice to come down

What is your view about the recent comments of the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, on the economic policies of President Muhammadu Buhari?

Well, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is entitled to his own opinion. Don’t forget that he is an economist, he meant well for the country. If a suggestion is very positive economic wise, why not? What I know is that the president needs  positive opinion everywhere just to have critical view of areas where he thinks the economy can be diversified. The president himself is very wise, he is very calm calculative and forward looking. If you listen to him when he met with  the former president of the country, Olusegun Obasanjo, he said that b 2019 those industrialists, i.e those companies that have moved away from Nigeria would come back. What Sanusi has been saying was that we should break away from the monopoly of oil which I consider to be oil doom now instead of oil boom and we should now move back to our natural endowment and gift from God. If every family in Nigeria can feed themselves, I think the country will be well. Sanusi is entitled to his own opinion. I don’t think he criticized Buhari. But sir, what would you recommend for the government, because if we look at the indices, a lot of things are happening to the country economically and people are saying that there should be a way out. Should the government pump more money into the economy? No, the government should not do that. I don’t think we should have anything to do with dollars. That’s my opinion.  What really happened to the economy is the fact that we attached our money to foreign currencies, that foreign currency determines our economy because we import a lot of goods. Ours is just importation without exporting anything. Anybody who wants to import, let him import at his own peril. So, let us continue to make use of home grown activities, that is what I believe in. On high cost of rice, I pray that the price will not come down because we have fertile land here. It’s only a prodigal son that will continue to look at another person’s  house and say that very house is better than his father’s house. Why don’t you just repair your father’s house and make it workable. So what we are saying in essence is that we have arable lands in this country. Where they are importing this rice from they do not have the kind of climatic condition we have here. God has endowed us with favourable condition here.

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 I have to give kudos to Alhaji Aliko Dangote for what he is doing now. He used one language that I so much love; he said that “by the time my rice comes to the market, I will make importation of rice very unattractive.” That is a very good expression. That’s exactly what we are talking about. Why should we be importing rice? Why should we be importing chicken? Why should we be importing any frozen food when we have everything here with us? And if you see the total number of currency that we are spending on the importation of food  materials. It is enormous and this is not good. So what is happening to the promises made by the APC-led government about employment, feeding school children and a lot of changes that the government promised? It appears these have been jettisoned. What is your opinion about this? Have you not seen changes in Nigeria now? You as a journalist, try and embark on investigative journalism and look at all sectors of the economy and you will see. What are the cardinal points of a good government? One, you provide shelter, food and security. Before this very administration got to power, what was the security situation of the country and, what is it today? What was the image of Nigeria before and what is it today? At the international level, people now recognise us they give us recognition more than before. You can be proud now that you are a Nigerian anywhere in the world. They ask you how is your president. The guy is doing fine because he is fighting corruption at every facet.
And don’t forget that corruption will be fighting back. Definitely, corruption is going to be fighting back, corruption is a monster. If corruption is a monster, those who are involved in it are more dangerous than corruption itself. So, definitely they will go for a kill and that is what they are doing; they don’t care about what happens, they are only being self-centred. They are egocentric, if not, how can somebody bury dollars in a latrine? The money is yielding nothing, and it is not contributing anything to the economy of the country. See the total number of money that has been discovered through the security vote given to the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki. How would you justify that? People did not know that a lot of things like these were going on. People are now afraid of lodging huge amount of money in the bank, because they will ask you the source of your income. But in the past, they used to hail people like these. If you were using a bicycle yesterday and today you buy a jet, it was salutation galore. Nobody questioned the money, but today, it is no longer like that. Have you not seen changes? But, despite all that the government has been doing in the last one year, what do you think should be its focus now, talking about palliatives on some of the critical issues facing us?


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 Well, like you rightly said, for us to have a palliative, it is justifiable to farm. I don’t believe that we should embark on importation or open the border for food to be coming in. People will abuse it. If  we do not face this reality now, it will be dangerous for us in future. We must face it now and tackle it finally. There is still the belief that the president shouldn’t have banned the importation of rice at this point in time. The argument is that he should have allowed the rice project to be successful before placing embargo on its importation… I am a student of political economy; those who have license to import rice would not want the local rice to grow. It is not possible, we either just stop it completely. For instance, in those days, people don’t consume rice on a daily basis. They usually eat rice during the yuletide period. But nowadays, we have made rice consumption our culture. We abandoned guinea corn that is beautiful and delicious, where is guinea corn now? That is what I eat now as a lawmaker. Go to the market and buy guinea corn and maize, and taste them, you will see how nice and medicinal they are. Even the rice they are importing now is full of chemical preservatives. Just try and buy guinea corn and beans, cook it, mix it and see how delicious it is. Look at corn itself, you can get up to 25 food items from maize. But we have forgotten all these. We have forgotten ourselves and our culture. We cannot even realise our potentials. See, what Governor Rauf Aregbesola is doing in the state of Osun. It will take a giant of a man to embark on that kind of a thing. But they will not realise it now. He is generating wealth through ideas. Go to Osun farm settlement, you will see what I am talking about. If you plant melon in Osun state, you will reap it within a short period. If you plant any kind of fruit in Osun, you will harvest it within a short period. I am a practising farmer. And that is the only profession that is allowed for public servants.

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 Why do you celebrate the money that you did not earn through hard labour? It is robbery. In fact, I can tell you that people claim that there is much unemployment in the country, we created it. It is an artificial unemployment because we have not tapped into available resources. What I will only advise the president to do is just to make farming very attractive to young people. All the money they have recovered from all these criminals, let them divert them to agriculture. Within three months, you will see the position of the economy of Nigeria in the committee of nations. See the way the rain is falling. Just take a handful of maize and throw it anywhere, before you know it, you will continue harvesting even though you did not actually plant. But we are blind to see these endowments that have been given to us by God. Even those who are crying to God for rain for six-12 months, we are importing from them. I have not seen anything wrong in what Buhari is doing that they are crying over. You know my lifestyle. You can see where you met me now. Going by the kind of the food I eat, I am completely an African. It is only God that prevents people from being infected from all these bad diseases. But I can tell you that is not my portion. Look, this is the practical example of what an African should be, I process cat fish in my farm, when you taste it, you will definitely come back for it because you’ll see the difference. It is being sold around the country, even across the border of the country. It is being preserved using African herbs. So why should I now go for frozen fish or turkey? I eat the vegetable I grow in my farm, I eat the okra that I grow in my farm. It’s one thing to be expecting structural change globally. What of your own, have you changed your attitude of living a false and reckless life. You are living bigger than your income. By the virtue of your status as a lawmaker and somebody that has indepth knowledge of agriculture, what steps have you taken so far to enlighten the younger generation about agriculture? Do you know I have a functional constituency office unlike fake constituency offices some people are operating? When you go to my constituency you will see ‘Bisi Yusuf School of Thought’. The first thing you see is ‘Thinking Beyond Politics’. How do I survive in a situation like this? We gather the youths for motivational talks. They see me practising farming, why should they not follow suit? I live within my constituency. That is a practical example. If every family just decides today that they will contribute to the economic development of this country, within six months, we will see how we are going to be. But everybody just wants to consume and consume without adding any value. Can you imagine that youths will just get out of their houses in the morning and go to the garage and when they see you coming from afar off they will raise up their hands calling “Baba ooo, Baba ooo”. That is their work from morning till evening whereas I will go to farm in the morning, give my fishes food and come back, and I would be thinking of how to add value. How will I now be spending my money for that kind of thing? I will rather give you job than be give you money. So many people are working in my fish pond. 

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 You journalists also should be able to help by not encouraging these people that say the country is hard. The country is hard, relax your head, you want us to depend on goods and you expect the government to open the border and kill the little gains we have. They have money and can easily kill what we have built.