Femi Adesina, President NGE
IT
is uncharitable for anybody to link the Federal Government and Dangote
Group with a plot to ‘flood’ the country with Genetically Modified
(GMO) rice, the Presidency said yesterday.
The government was reacting to some
individuals on social media to link the importation of killer-rice to
the government and the company.
In a statement, the President’s Special
Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, said that the Federal
Government in 2014 signed a $1 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
for investment in integrated rice project with Dangote Industries Ltd.
The statement clarified that in line
with the agreement, Dangote Industries Limited this year cultivated over
8,000 hectares in Hadejia, Jigawa State, creating over 10,000 direct
and indirect jobs for farmers who are the major beneficiaries of the
scheme.
It reads: “In consolidation of the rice
project of the Federal Government, President Muhammadu Buhari
administration is also in partnership with the African Development Bank
(AfDB) and other reputable companies to tap into the vast potentials in
the private sector and broadening the economic base of the country.
“The gains of the diversification drive
especially in the Agriculture sector are already yielding dividends as
shown by the recent statistics in the sector as published by the
National Bureau of Statistics.
“These engagements will continue until
the present administration has laid a solid foundation for the economic
development of the nation.
“It is therefore ridiculous that a
government that is wholly devoted to the generation of employment for
Nigerians especially through agriculture will turn around to get
involved in an activity that will reverse the gains of the same
partnership.
“President Muhammadu Buhari has said it
repeatedly that, ‘we have the capacity to feed ourselves in Nigeria and
even export from what we produce in the country’.
“He has also said that through the
provision of N200 billion by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for small
holder farmers and processors involved in local production of rice and
other grains, rice importation will hopefully stop in the next three
years.”
The statement described as unfortunate
that a few self-serving individuals are bent on distracting the
administration which has been working assiduously with well-meaning
Nigerians to bring the country out of the current economic situation it
has found itself.
The government said its efforts at
reflating the fortunes of the country through the diversification of the
economy which will very soon yield results.
“The Federal Government warns purveyors
of such malicious information and those thinking of embarking on the
same route to have a rethink and retrace their steps”, the statement
said.
Also yesterday at news briefing, the
National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), said that there was no GMO
rice in the country as being alleged.
NBMA’s Director-GenerDr. Rufus Ebegba,
who made the clarification that the government will not open its doors
to what has not been properly released and rejected in other countries.
He said: “The attention of the NBMA has
been drawn to a certain online post that a firm and government of
Nigeria have flooded the Nigerian market with GMO rice purported to be
poisonous. This falsehood definitely is the product of the writer’s
imagination who probably is using a pseudo name.
“As a regulatory body established by
the government to regulate the activities of modern biotechnology and
the release and use of genetically modified organisms in the country to
ensure safety to the environment and human health, the NBMA wishes to
state that there is no iota of truth in the said post and reinstates
that no GM rice has either been imported or released officially into the
country.
“In a bid to cast aspersions on the
modest efforts of the government towards the adoption of safe
biotechnology in Nigeria, the writer craftily and maliciously laced his
post with poison to cause unnecessary public panic.”
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