The Hon. Minister of Agriculture and Rural development – Chief Audu Ogbeh has dismissed news report quoting him as saying 'Nigerians eat too much rice, that’s why it is expensive'.

"This is totally false, misleading and a sheer display of irresponsible journalism, reckless sensationalism, and poor ethics," the minister said. He noted with disappointment that the mischievous headline in question was completely at variance with the content of the news story.

The Minister decried the deliberate misinformation by the media which has become a frequent occurrence and calls for caution, self-censorship and ethical compliance by journalists and social media activists.

For the avoidance of doubts, the minister stated that during a recent meeting he held with an indigenous Agro Company investing in the production of Irish Potato in Nigeria, he did talk about the health risk associated with the excessive consumption of rice and advised Nigerians to occasionally substitute rice with potato for improved diet.
Chief Ogbeh wondered how the statement attributed to him in the headline came about when no supporting statement or quote was provided in the content of the news report.

He advised Nigerians to beware of misleading headlines; pay close attention to media reports that come with such and should challenge the Press to abide by their professional ethics.

Source:
http://www.ajayiwrites.com/2016/09/i-did-not-say-rice-is-expensive-because.html

I thought as much...


lalasticlala

RoyalMail:
I thought as much...


lalasticlala

You dey work for royal mail?

I am nt understanding, is rice now selling for 8k

tempest01:

You dey work for royal mail?

Care to send some stuffs?

They are now feeling the pains of what the media did to GEJ. They opened the can of worm I doubt if anyone knows how to put it in back...

ipods with their flat heads always read headlines becos of their hatred for good work pmb is doing. trying by all means to instigate the good people of nigeria not to have great hope on the good things to come to their life. they want us to go back to egypt, to go back to our vomit.

Sometimes we need to start arresting these journalists reporting rubbish.

He's a liar. He said it. Even this useless source is questionable

You never see anything

Damage control

RoyalMail:


Care to send some stuffs?

Lol...royal mail UK our royal mail nigeria?

tempest01:


Lol...royal mail UK our royal mail nigeria?

All join... All na Royal

Swift response from the Ministry - I was going to highlight this in the original story itself. Even from the story on Daily Post that posted this headline, you could easily highlight the needless sensationalism the online paper sought to achieve - http://dailypost.ng/2016/09/14/nigerians-eat-much-rice-thats-expensive-audu-ogbe/

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, on Wednesday in Abuja said Nigerian businessmen demanded 2.5 billion dollars (about N492 billion) a week for importation of goods and services into the country.

Ogbeh made this known in a meeting with officials of VICAMPRO, an indigenous Agro Company investing in production of Irish Potato on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said that the ministry was willing to support local investors with capacity to produce goods and save the country’s foreign exchange.

He said that the consumption of rice in the country was rising and that a lot of people were not aware that the rice had some degree of arsenic.

The minister said that consuming rice in large quantity on a regular basis was a bit of health risk, adding that substituting it with potato would be welcomed development.

“The volume of importation of virtually everything into this country is too much.

“The demand for dollars in this country as at today is 2.5 billion a week; this is the quantum of dollars Nigerians are asking for to import things.

“Since 1986, we began this habit of importing everything and doing virtually nothing at home to sustain ourselves; now, we do not have the dollars and people are very hungry.

“This day was coming anyway, no matter who was in power; we have the most ridiculous method of devaluing our currency; every week, we auction the dollar and naira goes up.

“We sat and were hoping that by devaluation, we are going to arrive at Eldorado; if we continue like this, it will be a thousand naira to a dollar,’’ he said.

While commending the investor, Ogbeh said that any private sector effort that would develop local production of goods would be fully supported by the ministry.

“We should aggressively take the West African market; there is no reason why we should allow Irish potato from Ireland and France and Belgium into West Africa; it is the same story with onions.

Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of VICAMPRO, Mr Michael Agbogo, said that potato could bring value worth over one trillion naira annually if properly harnessed.

He said that potato was the fourth most important crop in the world and that a barrel of oil was an equivalent of 14 kilogrammes of potatoes.

According to Agbogo, while current price of crude oil will fetch the country about N16,000 per barrel, the equivalent in potato will fetch the country N39,000.

He said that in terms of value, potato had three times the value of crude oil, adding that it was a huge industry the country could get into.

Agbogo said that Egypt and Algeria were the leading potato producing countries in Africa, with Egypt producing four million tonnes annually from about 100,000 hectares of land.

He said that Nigeria, which had close to 500,000 hectares, was struggling to produce one million tonnes of potato per annum.

The potato thingy makes sense when you consider the event where he made this statement.

Looking at the misleading headline by Daily Post, do Nigerians eat too much rice Yes, that's why it is a staple food but we have to ask ourselves this question - why do we import what we consume when we can produce and even export an unpolished and 'healthier' local rice

Remember when Sanusi callled for more investment in rice production in Nigeria in 2013 He advised that the N365 billion set aside for rice importation annually should be invested in massive rice production. He had previously stated that the country spent about $1bn (N155bn) on the importation of rice in 2010. Even when FG bans importation of rice, why is it sill being smuggled via the borders Are we a thinking nation at all Who is doing who

Emefiele was also quoted making the following remarks:

“When we stop importing toothpicks, stop eating imported rice cultivated with chemical, stop eating chicken imported and preserved with formaldehyde, then our economy will begin to grow.”

https://www.naij.com/954425-stop-emefiele-accuses-sanusi-spreading-lies-economy.html

In 2013, we were declared the world’s largest importer of tomato paste

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On a lighter note, I find it interesting when Audu Ogbeh usually inserts the health risk of some of our practices. Here, he talked about rice being ascernic, last week he talked about the health effects of grinding pepper with machines.

Who is this freaking ajayi that should be feeding us news..


What the hell...