President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday met with members of his Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), lamenting that “some people are mercilessly against this country.”
President Buhari said at the 6th regular meeting of PEAC which is led by Professor Doyin Salami that these same unnamed people have been trying to undermine every policy of the government, irrespective of the good it is meant to achieve for the country.
According to Buhari, “we closed the borders to control the smuggling of petroleum products, and check the influx of smuggled goods, arms and ammunition.
“That was when the Comptroller General of Customs called me, saying 40 tankers laden with petrol had been impounded. I told him to sell the fuel, sell the trucks, and put the money in the treasury.
“They still brought arms and ammunition into the country, brought in rice in vehicles and motorcycles. I said shoot anyone found illegally with AK-47, yet they haven’t stopped. People must show consideration for their own country.”
The President also agreed with PEAC that the security challenges was having great negative repercussions on the economy.
Buhari charged leadership at every level to go back to the basics, noted that a bottom-up approach was necessary, from ward to local council, states, and federal.
The President promised that the federal government would focus on greater development of irrigation facilities in the country, and encourage more people into agriculture, stressing that agriculture was a good way for the country to overcome the economic challenges confronting it.
“We need to go back to the land. Technology is doing away with petroleum, but we are lucky we have other resources; gas, vast arable land, which we are not using enough,” he said.
The President was reacting to disclosure by Prof Salami, in his presentation, that only 2 per cent of land under cultivation is irrigated, recommending that apart from government efforts, incentives were needed for private people to enter the sector.
PEAC submitted that the global economy had continued to improve as COVID infections drop and the roll-out of vaccination intensified.
The council added that the Nigerian economy remained fragile with inflation rising, unemployment high, and external account weak.
Policy, the economic advisory body said, “must urgently address the challenges of rising prices.”
Among other issues recommended by PEAC are; decisive end to all forms of insecurity in the country, mobilization of resources for investment, hastened implementation of agricultural reform policies, the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) as a basis for revitalizing the industry, poverty reduction, employment generation, and incentives for private investment in irrigation to promote all-year-round farming.