‘Nigerians Now Consume Local Rice Worth N1.2bn Daily’

The President of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Alhaji Aminu Goronyo, has said Nigerians now consume local rice worth N1.2 billion daily.

Goronyo, who disclosed this while addressing newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday, explained that from 2015 till date, there was no official exchange of currencies for rice importation into the country as it was in the past.

He said that Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s intervention through its Anchor Borrowers programme made Nigeria to achieve rice sufficiency with such high consumption of locally produced rice.

He commended the CBN for its interventions in ensuring rice sufficiency in the country.

“Since 2015, there is no single naira converted to a dollar to import rice into this country again either from Thailand or India.

“The Rice we produced here is grown and processed locally and this is possible because of the support we got from the CBN through its popular Anchor Borrowers” he said.

The President warned the general public to be wary of fraudsters who might want use the name of the association for selfish interest.

He, specifically, warned that there was nothing like “RIFAN CBN Modern Anchor Borrowers Contractor” as published in some newspapers and urged the public to disregard it.

Goronyo said the association dealt with corporate organisations, not an individual and any person who tagged himself as RIFAN supplier was fake.

“Our attention has been drawn to the media report where somebody somewhere is claiming to be RIFAN CBN Modern Anchor Borrowers Contractor

“We checked our 25 suppliers and five service providers, none of them is with such name.

“The person is not a RIFAN supplier or service provider and I advise the general public to be careful with such person who does not even know anything about the operation of RIFAN” he said

Goronyo added that CBN had no business with RIFAN suppliers and there was never a time the apex bank engaged in rice supply chain business.

NAN