We Have Not Banned Food Importation – Presidency

The Presidency has denied claims in the media that President Buhari has banned the importation of food into the country.

Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media
and Publicity, gave the clarification in a statement he released on
Sunday August 18th while responding to an article by Financial Times
with claims that the President had banned food importation.

Recall that President Buhari on August 13th, announced that he has
ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop providing foreign
exchange for importation of food into the country. Read here. Many took his comment to mean that Food importation has been banned.

However, in his statement released on Sunday, Garba said there was no
ban on food importation. According to Garba, importers of the food
items are still free to source their forex from non-government financial
institutions towards meeting their importations.

The statement reads

“Your article ‘Muhammadu Buhari sparks dismay over policy shift on
food imports’ (15 August) suggests the Nigerian Government is
restricting the import of agricultural products into the country. This
is simply incorrect. To be absolutely clear, there is no ban – or
restriction – on the importation of food items whatsoever.

President Buhari has consistently worked towards strengthening
Nigeria’s own industrial and agricultural base. A recent decision sees
the CBN maintain its reserves to put to use helping growth of domestic
industry in 41 products rather than provide forex for the import of
those products from overseas.

Should importers of these items wish to source their forex from
non-government financial institutions (and pay customs duty on those
imports – increasing tax-take, something the FT has berated Nigeria for
not achieving on many occasions) they are freely able to do so.

Diversification of forex provision towards the private sector and
away from top-heavy government control, a diversification of Nigeria’s
industrial base, and an increase in tax receipts – are all policies one
might expect the Financial Times to support. Yet for reasons not quite
clear, the author and this newspaper seem to believe the president’s
administration seeks to control everything – and yet do so via policies
that relinquish government control.

We look forward to the next instalment of Mr. Munshi’s bizarre and puzzling article series” the statement read