This was revealed in his Sallah message to Nigerians, especially Muslims, to mark this year’s Eid El-Kabir celebration.
President Muhammadu Buhari has stated that insecurity was one of the reasons for the current high cost of food commodities in the Nigerian markets.
Buhari on Monday confirmed that insecurity had produced “severe and adverse effects on agriculture because farmers are prevented from accessing their farms by bandits and terrorists.”
This was revealed in his Sallah message to Nigerians, especially Muslims, to mark this year’s Eid El-Kabir celebration.
The president's Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, noted that Buhari assured that his government was working on easing the tension caused by some of the insecurity factors.
Buhari said, “COVID-19 pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the economies of all countries, including Nigeria, in addition to the fact that floods have caused large scale destruction to agricultural farmlands, thereby impacting negatively on our efforts to boost local production in line with our policy to drastically reduce food importation.
“This, he explains, has led to food inflation which the government is working hard to address. No government in our recent history has invested as heavily as we are doing to promote local production of about 20 other commodities, through the provision of loans and several other forms of support to our farmers.
“Apart from the destruction caused to rice farms by floods, middlemen have also taken advantage of the local rice production to exploit fellow Nigerians, thereby undermining our goal of supporting local food production at affordable prices.
“Let me also use this opportunity to reassure Nigerians that we are taking measures to address our security challenges. These challenges have produced severe and adverse effects on agriculture because farmers are prevented from accessing their farms by bandits and terrorists.”
“We have started taking delivery of fighter aircraft and other necessary military equipment and hardware to improve the capacity of our security forces to confront terrorism and banditry," Buhari added.