ON BUHARI'S RICE PYRAMIDS. By Zik Gbemre

"The display of rice pyramids by Buhari and his praise singers apparently to score cheap political points was as wasteful as it was unnecessary."

"The time, energy and money wasted on erecting the scaffolds and decorating them with bags of rice could have been channeled to more positive endeavours."

"With all this show off of alleged abundant food domestically produced, prices of food still keep rising and the masses still remain hungry.

"Buhari and his propagandists should better get to work and stop all this show of shame."

We were made to understand that the recent show of rice pyramids in Abuja, was for President Muhammadu Buhari to launch the progress of the Anchor Borrowers Programme in Abuja. According to them, Nigeria now has more rice milling plants to process the entire rice harvest around the country. And that the 13 pyramids are said to be the biggest in the continent, with each of the pyramids containing about 115,000 bags, of 100kg each.

Truth be told, and as far as I am concerned, President Buhari's handlers and worshippers were the ones who put on a dog and pony show in Abuja to entertain him, and to justify the almost close to $1bn they have wasted on the man's obsession with farming through programmes that have become lucre-schemes for northern politicians and bureaucrats.

Just imagine this, they went to Kebbi, spent at least 20 million in logistics to move the rice to Abuja and built pyramids for photoshops. Then probably returned them to Kebbi after the ceremony. The essence is to show the world that we can waste 40 to 50 billion naira for nothing. Zero gain, Zero initiative. Just the usual cow and groundnut economy.

The Buhari Government wants to impress us with rice. But I ask, of what purpose are these rice pyramids in Abuja? Of what economic values are they? Will it translate to rice being cheap? Will they be given to poor people afterwards? Who is paying for them? Who owns the rice? Can we demand to see if all these bags actually have rice in them? Or is this another foolery? Why don't they show us the farms where the rice are being cultivated, the industries where they are processed and the assembly plants where they are bagged?

These pyramids would become waste when the rains return. These guys are just jokers.

This is how irresponsible this APC government has become. Why exhibit rice that is not in the market? We are talking about over 200 million people. These pyramids won't feed 5m people in a month. It's useless to exhibit food in public when the poor masses are hungry.

Thailand sells rice to practically every country under the sky. Yet they don't build rice pyramids.

Wasting precious efforts and labour to make rice pyramids - a process that adds no iota of value to the rice distribution chain in the country - is absolutely preposterous.

Again, building rice pyramids is not a problem. In many places, it could be viewed as cultural celebrations, some sort of tradition to show for a bountiful harvest.

The problem should be: WILL THESE HUGE BAGS TRANSLATE TO CHEAPER BAGS OF RICE IN THE NIGERIAN MARKET? Apparently not!

Must everything, and anything in this Buhari-APC led Federal Government be used for propaganda purposes?

With almost eight years down under his reign, President Buhari's government is DESPERATE to showcase achievements even though there are OBVIOUS FAILURES in all sectors of the economy. Rice pyramid, grain pyramid, yam and cassava pyramids and yet, there's hunger everywhere as people cannot even afford the costs of food produced locally.

Let's recall that the Kano groundnut pyramids of the past were stacked for railway terminals, destined for export through seaports. The Abuja rice pyramids aren't meant for export nor milling. It's all a show-off.

Most annoying is the fact that the price is four times higher than when Buhari came to power.

I don't see how this is an achievement when a bag of rice now goes for N30k to N32k, the same rice that was sold for N8k before 2015.

Fortunately, the transporters and also the labourers that stacked the rice pyramids, earned an income from it. And that is the only thing I see positive about this wasteful exercise.

The Buhari-led Federal Government has invested one trillion naira in farming, yet food inflation is at an all time high; they bought Tucano jets, but terrorists and bandits have roadblocks in Buhari’s home state.

Today, they are showing us rice pyramids, but the minimum wage can’t buy a bag of rice. Ours is a cocoon of falsehoods.

Bottom line, our present crop of political leaders seriously need self examination and introspection and ascertain exactly where they think they are leading the country to.

_*Zik Gbemre.*_

_*January 22, 2022*_

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