Posted by Amarachi on Tue 09th Jul, 2024 - tori.ng
Utomi stated that the poor trade policy with the ascendance of oil income caused cash crop farmers to abandon the farms to the non-tradable goods sector as messengers and construction workers.
Pat Utomi
Nigerian professor of political economy and management expert, Pat Utomi has taken a swipe at the Tinubu-led administration over its failure to heed his advice on how to stop food inflation.
In a post shared on X, the politician said the Tinubu government chose to focus on presidential jets, lagos-calabar highway, SUVs for lawmakers rather than sort food inflation.
Describing their action as the ‘’height of unwisdom', Utomi stated that the poor trade policy with the ascendance of oil income caused cash crop farmers to abandon the farms to the non-tradable goods sector as messengers and construction workers.
He wrote;
‘’I woke up at 2am to do the KAKAAKI interview this morning but the chill of the wrong policies announced yesterday for the agriculture sector has not let me return to sleep. Do we forget so quickly? How poor trade policy with the ascendance of Oil income caused cash crop farmers to abandon the farms to the none tradable goods sector as messengers and construction workers and when Oil price volatility resulted in construction firms not being paid on time triggering their retrenchment. They did not go back to farms and we became a mono product economy. Now we want to make dependence on food imports permanent when we have not the money to pay for the imports. We are inviting a famine.
Months ago I pleaded that this food price inflation should be combated with Forest rangers being deployed to fertile territories and farmers given input incentives managed by NGOs and not corrupt government officials so that they can focus on legumes that can be harvested in three months and the markets flooded with food. Instead we focused on Presidential Jets, Lagos-Calabar Highway, SUVs for National Assembly and Presidential motorcades of 100 vehicles. The height of unwisdom. Now the chicken have come home to roost and we want to inflict long term structural damage in panic incentives. God Save Our Souls,''