Nigerian lawmaker and business magnate, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, has challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to follow the footsteps of Ghana in prioritizing education and banning the importation of rice.
According to him, a ban on rice importation would save the Nigerian economy a whopping #2.3 billion ($75million) and boost the production of local rice.
GhanaWeb.com reports that Senator Murray-Bruce who’s the founder and co-owner of Silverbird Group in a video posted on his Facebook page on Monday titled: “Common Sense Series” argued that Ghana has been able to attract many Nigerian students to its tertiary institutions because the government invested in education rather than food, unlike Nigeria who rather prioritized spending billions of naira on importation of rice.
He stressed, “Nigerian parents spend $1 billion educating their children in Ghana. The reason for that is because we are not investing in our education sector to keep pace with our population growth. I spend time in Ghana; I have employees and businesses there; I have friends there.
“What I find interesting is that the foreign rice we like so much in Nigeria is rare in Ghana. The rice they eat in Ghana is most likely grown in Ghana. “Believe it or not, Ghana is one of the largest producers of rice in West Africa and they are looking to start exporting soon.”
Juxtaposing the two governments’ leadership ability to prioritize the need of its population, he said: “Imported rice is abundant in Nigeria, but it’s scarce in Ghana, while there are more tertiary institutions in Ghana and we don’t have enough in Nigeria.
Adding that it is such a misplaced priority of leadership that has caused Nigeria “to be spending so much money on feeding our people; we are giving Nigerians rice, and in doing so, you are feeding them for a day. But the Ghanaian government is giving its people education, therefore feeding them for a lifetime”.
Proffering solution to the problem, Mr. Murray-Bruce advised President Buhari to ban the importation of rice, and seize such brand of rice from market and share it to the poor, while investing the money ought to have been used in importation of rice in education sector.
He submitted that this singular act will “reduce pressure on naira and eventually increase value of naira against other world major currencies.”
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