Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh,
on Thursday, blamed men of the Nigeria Police Force, their counterparts
in the Army and Nigeria Customs Service attached to series of roadblocks
in the country, for unending high cost of food prices, through
unbearable extortions from truck drivers conveying farm produce to
various urban centres.
This was even as farmers across the country kicked against the move
by the federal government to effect reduction in the prices of food
items.
Lamenting over the situation before the Senate and House of Representatives Joint
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development at the National
Assembly, the Minister said one of the factors responsible for high cost
of food prices in the country, “Is the daily unbearable extortions men
of the Nigeria Police, their counterpart in the Army and Customs Service
visited on truck drivers conveying farm produce from the hinterland to
urban centres, under the guise of carrying out security checks”.
“These truck drivers based on raw lamentations made to the Ministry
in recent time, alleged that, at every check points, they are always
forced to part with reasonable amount of money by any group of the
security agencies, which they said, made farmers to have no option than
to factor cost of the extortion into prices of
the food items”, he added.
The Minister explained further to the committee members that, based
on the complaints by the truck drivers, his ministry wrote to the
Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris and heads of other security
agencies, to dissuade their operatives from the act, but daily reports
available to the ministry still show that such motorists are still being
extorted.
He also cited high cost of diesel, which now sells for N300 per
litre, as another factor responsible for the skyrocketing prices of food
items in the country, since according to him; trucks conveying farm
produce are powered by diesel.
Ogheh added to the list of alleged factors responsible for high prices of food items in
the country by, submitting that, the treaty on free movement of goods
and services put in place by the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS) among member states, gives room for movement of not less
than 300,000 trucks of grains outside Nigeria on daily basis, which the
ministry cannot check.
Though, the minister assured the committee members that the federal
government would soon see to reduction in prices of food items, going by
the committee set up to that effect, but said farmers were already
kicking against the move.
According to him, farmers were angry with him over the move because,
they saw the situation on ground as very favourable economically to
them.
He said: “The situation on ground as far as high prices of food items
are concerned is one of a dilemma to me because, while the city
dwellers are unhappy with us, farmers are very happy and seriously
kicking against any move to tamper with their happiness by cutting down
the high price of farm produce, for now.
Specifically, Ogbeh said, one of such farmers tackled him recently in
Katsina not to tamper with the current price of food items, by claiming
that he made N4million from the sales of Sorghum.
He added that another farmer in Anambra state also claimed to have
made N1million profit from sales of rice as a result of the current
market price.
The Minister, however, added in the Ministry’s 2017 budget defence
before the joint committee, that the implementation of the budget would
be driven by the need for food security in the country.