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| President Buhari at the Summit |
President Muhammadu Buhari said
on Saturday that the priority of his administration is to ensure national food
security before export of food products.
The President said this while
contributing to a Presidential Panel Roundtable on Investment and Growth
Opportunities at the opening session of the Africa 2016: Business
for Africa, Egypt and the World at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
President Buhari stressed that
Nigeria being a mono-economy dependent on oil, and with a teeming unemployed
youth population, the way out of the current slump in the global oil market, is
for the administration to focus on agriculture and solid minerals development.
“The land is there and we need machinery inputs, fertilizer and insecticides,”
he said.
Reiterating his opposition to the
devaluation of the naira, President Buhari said Nigeria cannot compete with
developed countries which produce to compete among themselves and can afford to
devalue their local currencies.
“Developed countries are
competing among themselves and when they devalue they compete better and
manufacture and export more. But we are not competing and exporting but
importing everything including toothpicks. So, why should we devalue our
currency?” the President asked.
According to him, “We want to be
more productive and self-sufficient in food and other basic things such as
clothing. For our government, we like to encourage local production and
efficiency.” He added that those who have developed taste for foreign luxury
goods should continue to pay for them rather pressure government to devalue the
naira.
President Buhari, who expressed
optimism that Nigeria would get out of its current economic downturn, noted that
another major problem militating against economic revival is the huge resources
deployed towards fighting insurgency and international terrorism. He, however,
commended the support being received from the international community in the
administration’s fight against terrorism as well as cooperation in tracing
looted funds stashed away in foreign countries.
Responding to a question on his
performance since he assumed office, the President said that his administration
has been quite focused on three fundamental issues of securing the country,
reviving the economy and stamping out corruption.
“The message on corruption has
been driven home vividly and Nigerians are very acceptable to the message,” he
said, adding that those accused of stealing public funds are cooperating by
voluntarily providing useful information while investigations and prosecutions
are ongoing.
In his opening address at the
Forum, the Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, said Africa needs to
concentrate on transforming into knowledge societies using innovation and
research.
The Presidents of Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan and the Prime
Minister of Ethiopia also participated at the Roundtable.
In his opening message, the
President of the African Development Bank (ADB), Akinwumi Adesina, said that
“Africa must think big, act big and develop big.”
Before departing Egypt, President
Buhari and his Egyptian host, had a bilateral discussion on security, military
cooperation, agriculture and solid minerals development.
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