NAN – To benefit the Nigerian economy, we must reduce importation from the current 80% to at least 50%, says Dr. Joseph Odumodu, the director general of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, Dr. Odumodu, who earlier this week spoke about the challenges Nigeria is facing while trying to export some of the locally-produced goods, observed that no nation can become independent while relying heavily on importation.
Dr. Odumodu also maintained that, in order to engage and provide jobs for the youth, Nigeria needs to make own industries functional.
“Any time you are importing, you are paying salaries of people abroad,” Dr. Odumodu said.
“This is a highly-populated country. Where will our graduates work when there are fewer industries today than there were twenty years ago? There are more graduates today than we had twenty years ago. We have to begin to address these inconsistencies.
“So, as I am talking to you, eight out of ten products used in Nigeria are imported. It is not good, it is something we must try to change in the next three to four years to reduce it to fifty.”
Moreover, there are entrepreneurs who are harming Nigeria’s economy and Nigerians by profitting from import of substandard products. Noting that, Dr. Odumodu restated his organisation’s determination to ensure the situation did not persist.
There are over a thousand markets in Nigeria, Odumodu said, and the only way to address the issue of standards of the imported goods is to enforce rules.
The Nigerian Veterinary Research Institute, for instance, says Nigeria can meet its own poultry needs, with 180 million birds, and more and more Nigerians investing in the industry. And with 22 million cattle, 40 million sheep, and 50 million goats, the institute adds, Nigeria can afford of being self-sufficient in catering to own meat and protein needs.
However, Nigeria still loses billions of dollars importing a long list of produce. Every year, we have to pay up to N197 billion importing tomato products. Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, has recently expressed his concern over Nigeria losing above N630 billion on imported agricultural produce despite Nigeria once being a country sustained mainly by agriculture.
