Sowore Tackles Buhari For Accepting Food From Dubai ‘After Touting Self-Sufficiency In Agriculture’

Former presidential aspirant and convener of the RevolutionNow protest, Omoyele Sowore, has tackled President Muhammadu Buhari after Nigeria took delivery of some medical and food supplies from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The UAE Prime Minister, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, had sent 14 tonnes of medical supplies and 20 tonnes of food supplies to Nigeria as COVID-19 palliatives.

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The donation, which was announced on Twitter by the UAE government’s media office, arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on Saturday.

Sowore, who is a fierce critic of Buhari, described the president as a failure for accepting the food donation after claiming that his administration had achieved food security.

He tweeted on Sunday, “Ghana is deporting Nigerians, failed @MBuhari is receiving food supplies from Dubai after touting self-sufficiency in Agriculture, didn’t Nigeria govt vuvuzelas claim Nigeria produces more rice than Thailand? #RevolutionNow, we must restore our dignity as a people!”

President Buhari had in August, 2019, directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop providing Foreign Exchange (forex) for the importation of food into the country, saying Nigeria had achieved “steady improvement in agricultural production, and attainment of full food security.”

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In a statement issued by his senior media assistant, Garba Shehu, the president said forex should be used strictly for diversification of the economy and not for encouraging more dependence on foreign food.

“Don’t give a cent to anybody to import food into the country.

“We have achieved food security, and for physical security, we are not doing badly,’’ Shehu had quoted the president to have said in his hometown in Daura, Katsina State, during last year’s Eid-el-Kabir celebration.

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